


The Rarepair Bonanza

by KriegsaffeNo9



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Ambiguous disorder Constanze, Comfort, Conventions, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Game Night, Happy birthday Lotte!, Heavy Angst, Mild spooks, Monstering Out, Movie Night, Pets, Rare Pairings, Sad Ending (for the sixth entry), Size Difference, Some gore (in story six), Sucy's distinctive form of hard love, Teaching, The Forbidden Word, Wingman Jazzy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-06-30 01:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15741522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: Wherein I write rarepair shorts by request!  Doin' 'em from Discord for now, but if you wanna see a rarer pair, comment and I might do some!1: Lotte/Akko: Cats!  2: Amanda/Lotte: Spirit conjuring!  3: Amanda/Hannah: Height!  4: Hamanda Sequel: Seating!5: Barbara/Akko: Conventions! 6: Lotte/Akko: Tragedy! 7: Constanze/Amanda: Invitations! 8: Sucy/Constanze: Drugs!9: Lotte/Frank: Happy birthday! 10: Jazz/Sucy: Weird interests! 11: Nelson/Finneran: Game night! 12: Sucy/Lotte: Comfort.13: Akko/Cons: Getting attention. 14: Di/Cons: Recovery, discovery. 15: Jasminka/Sucy: Reluctant love. 16: Di/Amanda: Dreams.





	1. When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies

_Requested by Kyoanime3_  
_From OTP Prompts on Tumblr_

* * *

Sucy slammed the door behind her, tapping her wand and casting a locking spell. "Okay, people," she said, "it's a long story, but..."

Something stepped onto her skirt. She looked down, ready to destroy it. The beast that dared enter her personal space as clearly delineated by the skirt was something her brain registered as "sawed-off kitten." It had tiny limbs carrying a cylindrical chassis wreathed in Creamsicle-colored fur. It leveled its weighty braincase at Sucy and issued a piercing "Wew!"

Sucy narrowed her eye at it. "What is this."

Lotte--who was here--scooped up the kitten and held it up just under its forelegs. "Me and Akko went into Blytonbury today, and there was an adoption special going on at the shelter! There was a half-breed munchkin cat who had babies and it was time for them to go out into the world and have adventures!" She nuzzled the pet's back.

"But, uh," Akko said, creeping into view, "we couldn't really pick one..." Three more of the cats, each with a colored collar, were crawling up Akko like a tree, perhaps snooping around for food secreted away in her pockets.

"This one's Poncho," Lotte said, setting him on her shoulder. She pat each of the other cats as she named them: "This one's Hoppo, that one's Sprinkles, and last but not least we have Xaos, Envoy of Entropy." Xaos was black-furred, a tiny storm cloud hovering over his head like a halo. "He's kind of lazy, but I love every one of them very much."

"Aren't they so cute?" Akko said, leaning her head in Hoppo's direction. Hoppo jumped from her arm to Lotte's bunk like she was fired off a tiny catapult. "I really miss my cat back home, so I thought, yeah, Lotte's got the right idea!"

"Are they housebroken?" Sucy said.

"Probably!" Akko said.

"If not, I can teach them!" Lotte said.

"It'll be super easy and convenient! And they can eat mice and stuff but not when--okay, Lolo, pencil that in, we gotta teach 'em not to go after orange mice with my eyes and voice because that'd get weird." Xaos bumped his head against her chin. "Aw, back to you too, little guy." She nuzzled him as he silently bopped her with his face.

"Well," Sucy said, "guess I'll clear the room 'til you deal with the infestation. By the way, I wonder how you're going to split them up when you inevitably graduate school and move infinitely far away from each other. Give that a good long think while I... while I get back to solving that problem." She dug in her belt pouches for a particular potion and kicked the door open, rushing into the halls. Somewhere nearby, things began to explode.

The door eventually swung shut on Akko and Lotte and Sucy's question.

"Well..." Akko said. "I gue--whoa, whoa now..." She tilted her head back as Sprinkles crawled up her hair. "Hang on. Thoughts. Thinking."

Lotte stroked Poncho's back. His little tail was straight in the air, so it was perpendicular to her chest. "We don't have to, you know."

"But she asked, like, point-blank, right away. Why can't we think about it now?"

"Because it's sad," Lotte said.

"But she raised a..."

With intense caution, Lotte stepped over and took Akko and Sprinkles and (especially carefully) Xaos in her arms and hugged. "Akko," she said, "we're cat mamas now. We've been cat mamas for almost two hours. We've got a year and eleven twelfths to go before we graduate. [There's so much future ahead of us!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jluLPQxOkgY) Who knows what amazing things will happen between now and then? I bet by the time we have to worry, it'll be the easiest thing in the world to deal with."

Akko smiled and, as Poncho crawled from Lotte's shoulder to hers and Xaos emanated from her side towards Sucy's bed, thus letting her lower her arm safely, she hugged her back. "Yeah. You're right."

"That's the spirit," Lotte said, rubbing her cheek against Akko, who giggled and rubbed back. Poncho joined in, and Sprinkles too once she made it to Akko's other shoulder.

"Cat mamas!" Akko said.

"Cat mamas~" Lotte said.

"Wew," Poncho said.

Meanwhile, Sucy was walking away from an explosion.


	2. My Paper Heart

_Requested by Chariot Griswold_

Lotte sang, and the book awoke. A sleepy spirit, made of leather with parchment wings, yawned and stretched, the sound of an old spine flexing. "Goooooob morning," it said.

"'Sup, bitch?" Amanda said, shooting it some finger guns.

The book spirit clutched its purse (that it had) and sputtered, "Why--I never!" It humphed and went back to sleep, vanishing into the ancient copy of 1001 Ideas for an Unforgettable First Date by Gregory J.P. Godek.

Lotte sighed. "Amanda, you have to be a little more patient with the spirits. Especially if it's the first time you're talking to them! Think of it like a job interview."

Amanda flinched. "Like... one I have to put on pants for?"

"...are there pants-optional job interviews in America?"

"I hope," Amanda said, brushing away a tear.

"Hrrrm." Lotte adjusted her glasses, catching the glint. "Alright. I have an idea. But it's going to be a little more extreme than I had in mind."

Amanda raised an eyebrow. "Continue..."

"I'm not just gonna teach you how to negotiate with spirits. I'm going to teach you how to call them up! That'll get you exactly where you need to be to talk to them!"

"HEY!" the librarian shouted into a megaphone, "SHUT THE HELL UP! STUDENTS ARE TRYING TO STUDY, JERKS!"

"Elsewhere!" Lotte whispered. "I'm gonna teach you elsewhere!"

* * *

"Elsewhere" was a vacant lot where a greenhouse used to be before it burned down in a deliberate smoking accident as part of an insurance ploy. Lotte planted a vase on the still-ashen ground. "The first part is easy. You cast spells all the time, right?"

"I do, totally," Amanda said, hands on her hips.

"Well, spirit singing is like spellcasting. But you don't need a wand! You just have to fill your heart with the energy of life and express yourself as purely and as you can, just, just project yourself out into the world without compromise!" She gestured wildly, prancing around Amanda. "That's basically it!"

"Right. Express myself." She performed some vocal exercises. "Got any requests?"

"Follow your heart," Lotte sang, referencing something Amanda didn't know. "Fol-low your he-a-art..."

"Alright..." Amanda stepped forward and sang, "This ain't a city, it's a _gun! Dad! Arse! Face!_ "

Nothing.

"Pork rinds are scared of Konata," Amanda continued singing. "But I die, Gress!"

Nope, nothin'.

"I'M A LEANIN' MAN! AN I'M ALSO INTO, I'M ALSO INTO K!"

Additional absence.

"Come on!" Amanda said, "That one's a banger!"

"It's not about being a banger," Lotte said. "It's about what it means to you. Music is spiritual! I mean, literally! You should sing something that means a lot to you, personally, in your heart of hearts. My spirit songs were passed down through my family for generations. I can sing the song my mama and grandpa and great-grandma and great-great grandma and great-great-grandpa sang and so on!"

Amanda grumbled. "Personal."

"Personal!"

"I... I have one..." Amanda said.

"If it's--of course I can keep a secret," Lotte said.

"I know, you're like a mute little angel when you need to shut up. Like when I stole Finny's broom and jumped off it while it flew into that acid pit I found." Her gaze was locked on the dirt at her feet for lack of wanting to look Lotte in her big cute bug eyes. "But, man, this is, like, this is like something I feel kind of... okay, can you keep a secret even harder than normal?"

"I can," Lotte said, giving Amanda a big hug.

"Hella. Alright... deep breaths." Amanda counted down from three, then from ten, then from lucky thirteen before Lotte gave her an encouraging poke on the shoulder. "Fine, fine." Breathe: _"[Please just don't play with me, my paper heart will ble-e-e-ed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voPz7hygOhk)..."_

Green light swirled around the vase. Amanda, not that she would ever admit it even under oath to one of the scarier witch gods, kept singing the old emo song until the light solidified into a roly-poly vase spirit. It dabbed at little spirit tears. "Oh, what feeling," it said. "Dear conjurer, are you fine?"

Amanda crossed her arms. "I'm totally fine, you--"

Lotte covered her mouth. "Teachable moment!" she whispered. "Be open with him and he'll be open with you!"

"Alright, alright..." Amanda stepped forward. "Well, if'n I'm gonna be super honest, Constanze has been really kind of a bitch to me lately? I know she doesn't mean it but sometimes she's just like, 'hey, it's that ginger whatsit I need out of my machine shop. Bomb bomb, have a nice dream!'" She groaned. "You ever have someone like that? Like, she's my bestie, I'd jump in front of a bullet for 'er, but sometimes I think she's gonna throw a bullet at me 'cause, I dunno, it's a blood moon and she's on her Dutch Super Period..."

* * *

Amanda sobbed into her hands.

"There, there," the vase spirit said, patting her back. "You'll work it out."

"Thanks, man," Amanda said when she managed the strength. "You're... you're cool, you know? For a vase."

"A vase needs to have good ears," the vase spirit said, "for what else do we have to pass the time?"

Lotte handed Amanda a handkerchief, which she used to dry her eyes. Her nose she wiped on her sleeve.

"Yeah... hey, vase. Could you do me a solid?" Amanda said.

"Of course," the vase said.

"You know Finneran, right? The teacher on my shitlist? I'm thinking if I give you to her as a present--wait, Lotte, where'd you get this guy?"

Lotte shrugged.

"If I put you in Finny's room, can you spy on her so I can prank her like super hard in the future?"

"This sounds amenable," the vase said.

"Hot damn. It's a deal?" She held her hand out.

The vase took it. "A deal it is." The spirit dissipated and its energies fluttered back into the vase.

'Was... was that it?" Amanda said. "Just sorta sing emo at 'em and then, like, talk to 'em?"

"That was it!" Lotte said, helping her to her feet (for she'd wound up stumbling into a seat on the ground by the ten-minute mark of her impromptu therapy session).

"That... yeah, I liked that," Amanda said, smiling. "Thanks, babe."

"Anytime," Lotte said, snuggling up against her. Amanda took her by the lower back and planted a mighty kiss, dipping her low like the last kiss in a romance movie. Her heart thumped far too hard to be healthy. "Can we sit down before we keep kissing?"

"Sure, babe. In fact..."

* * *

"...no, he just has to... he just has to..." Amanda sputtered, gesturing vaguely but obscenely.

"There, there," the bench spirit said. "Do you need some water?"

"Maybe!" Amanda said. "Hang on, actually, I think I see that vending machine they put in. I'm gonna ask it to give me a Coke."

"What is this new Amanda I've created?" Lotte said, legitimately uncertain.


	3. Giantess

_Requested by Kavendish_  
_From OTP Prompts For You on Tumblr_

"Nrraaagh!" Hannah said, jumping off the desk, falling well short of her target and spraining her ankle on the floor. "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, dammit, ow!" She hopped on her good foot and took her damaged foot in hand. "Mother Mormo...!"

Amanda looked up from her textbook, or specifically from the printout of Twitter memes she snuck into her textbook. "The hell's wrong with you?"

"I need to get to that shelf!" She pointed to the second-tallest shelf in Reagents 101, a good foot higher than she could feasibly reach by jumping given her lack of room to run and lack of athletic ability.

"Why not just use your wand, bitch?"

"Because Barbara swallowed it," Hannah said.

"Why'd she... how?"

"I shoved it in her mouth and punched her in the throat and told her to choke on it and die," Hannah said, in a huff. "But now she's just alive and a stupid bitch with my wand in her stomach, where it's melting and not killing her at all like the betrayer it is." She kicked the desk with her bad foot and immediately regret it.

"Huh... attempted murder." Amanda nodded. "I dig that. Lemme help you."

"Help how? You're just some ugly American with red hair and a--" She screamed as Amanda rose up and walked towards her with confidence and purpose. She covered her head and waited for death.

Amanda scooped her up just under her butt and propped her onto her shoulders in a piggyback ride. "Alright. Can you reach it now?"

Hannah opened an eye.

The shelf was almost in arm's reach. She hesitantly pawed at it, showing that the dusty jars were just outside easy reach. "No," she said.

"Okay, then," Amanda said, and she put her hands under Hannah's butt and held her up within easy reach of the jars.

Hannah sat there blushing furiously; Amanda's hands were big, 'cause she herself was big, a good foot and a half taller than Hannah. They were strong, but smooth and soft--this she could feel even through two layers of fabric. Thieves' hands, steady and graceful, but rogues' hands, too, able to lift and strike. Also, they were on her butt.

"Well?" Amanda said.

"Oh... right," Hannah said, grabbing the jar of potato eyes. "I have what I want I can go now."

"Sure thing," Amanda said, turning around and walking to the classroom door [with Hannah held proudly overhead like a trophy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmL4viLojYY).

"pleaseletmedownpleaseletmedownpleaseletmedown" Hannah said in an endless whisper 'til at last Amanda reached the door and dropped her down, pain shooting up her sprained ankle. "Thank you. Goodbye forever," she said, storming through the door without turning around.

It would be a cold day in Hell before she showed an American how red she could get.

* * *

 

The next Thursday, Amanda was waiting for her at the end of Reagents 101. "Hey," she said. "Need another lift to...daaaaay?"

Hannah sashayed up in her new shoes. "No," she said. "In fact, there will be no lifting necessary from you ever again, O'Neill." She clicked her heels on the ground. Her heels were platform heels over two feet tall, hollowed out and with a slot for a Gameboy Color in each of them. (She didn't actually buy the Gameboys for the slots because they were slightly extra.) "As you can see, I've rendered your tallness obsolete."

"Have you, now," Amanda said, standing up and looking Hannah in the eye, destroying her instantly. "Hey, hey, what's that I'm seeing now?"

"Don't look at me," Hannah said, or she intended to as she spun on one heel, the heel that she sprained last week, and lost all her powers of balance. She careened at the corner of the Demon Desk, her temple destined to strike the corner and her life to end shortly after.

Amanda put a halt to her bleak destiny, catching her before she could die a chump's death. "You sure you don't want that lift?"

"lif plz" Hannah said.

Amanda hiked her up into her arms, one under her back, one under her thighs. "Where you goin'? Back to your dorm?"

"...just..." Hannah tried to look away from her. "Just... take me somewhere nice."

"Sure thing, babe."

"Sure thing what?"

"Bitch. I said bitch."

"You better have," Hannah said, fidgeting in Amanda's firm and steady grip.


	4. I'll Never Let You Go

_Sequel to "Giantess;" requested by Kavendish, prompt from OTP Prompts For You_

Introduction to Witch-Art in the Sense of Drawing and Painting and Not Other, More Metaphorical Definitions, Because That's Every Other Class You Take 101 was Amanda's elective for the semester, and blessed be, it was an early one, giving her plenty of time to shake off the liquor and absorb the caff into her system.

Not that she regularly drank to excess on school nights. Perish the thought.

She definitely needed that coffee or one of Cons's Afri-Colas, though. Especially with this hangover.

IWASDPNOMDBTEOCYT was held in one of the smaller classrooms, the desks arranged in a circle around a small platform where their teacher would probably pose naked or whatever. Amanda plopped her bag beside the seat she liked the best and scooched in, feeling pleased with herself. She was so pleased with herself that she plopped the course's textbook, "Drawing on the Left Side of the Brane: The Sixth Dimension and Your Artistic Throughput," onto her desk, put her head on it, and fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Two and a half minutes later, she woke up. "The hell?!" she said, trying to orient her thoughts in the direction of figuring out what just happened to her, and also what day it was and why she had been born.

Soon she had pieced together what just happened: she had entered class, fallen asleep, and then Hannah England, for whatever reason, had lifted Amanda off her desk (that must've been a sight to see), taken a seat on her lap, and put her own textbook on top of hers and started reading it. Also, Amanda was born to try and inject a little love into a rapidly-failing marriage, a ploy that wound up dooming everybody involved, especially Amanda.

"Hey," Amanda said.

Hannah scanned the third page of the introduction, trying to make sense of a tangled wall of equations.

Amanda slipped her hands under Hannah's shirt and tickled her belly. That got a reaction immediately, Hannah locking up for an instant before, sputtering and giggling, she tried to catch Amanda's hands through her shirt. "St--h--hey, hey, enough, O'Neill!" she said.

"I will when you get outta my damn seat," Amanda said, setting her head on Hannah's shoulder.

"Excuse me, O'Neill," Hannah said, glaring back at her, "this class has an assigned seating protocol and _you're_ the one flagrantly ignoring it."

"Maybe it does," Amanda said, "but I'm not ignoring it 'cause I'm flagrant, I'm ignoring it because I don't freaking care. Just take _my_ seat, wherever it's supposed to be."

"I think not. This is _my_ seat." Hannah wriggled her backside into Amanda's lap, nesting quite comfortably.

"It sure is," Amanda said. "You know what? To hell with it, you keep sittin' here, I'll keep sittin' here. We're gonna double-sit this damn chair."

Hannah had no response to that. She kept staring ahead, ostensibly at her textbook.

"Yep... you do you." She took her hands out from Hannah's clothes at last. "And I'll do y--me. I'm doing me, right here, right now, out loud."

Halfway across the school in one of the safer restrooms, Lotte blurted "Phrasing!"

"Yes," Hannah said. "That... that sounds amenable." She flipped through the book until she was on a page with art that didn't have a naked lady or a bunch of curving shapes that might be kind of lady-shaped. "You can take your head off of me, O'Neill."

"We're usin' the same book," Amanda said. "Why not share while we're sharin'?"

"This isn't sharing. This is me _establishing dominance_."

"Dominance, huh."

"Yes! This is my seat, and so long as it's mine I'm going to claim it no matter who else has the _audacity_ to sit here!"

"Bitchin'. Can we turn a few pages back?" She took Hannah's hands in hers and aggressively flipped pages with the tip of her thumb, landing on a classical depiction of a witch's-sabbath aero-orgy with backwards brooms and confused cats and devils. "'Cause I may be your seat but you got your damn book on top of mine. [And I ain't gonna surrender control of my book to my blanket.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kiHBFwGsUE)"

"Please surrender control to your bl... to me," Hannah said, starting to tremble. At least Amanda couldn't see her expression.

"Nah," Amanda said.

* * *

Twenty minutes into class and Hannah was trapped.

"--into the third dimension at last," the teacher said, resolving the shape of her painting into a regular ol' painting on canvas. "As you can tell, our work in this class is going to be heedlessly dangerous and ill-advised, but then, people will tell us that the act of witchcraft itself is heedlessly dangerous and ill-advised. Now, just to establish ground rules... you two red ones," and she pointed at Hannah and Amanda, "why should you give your painting two meters of clearance when rotating it into a higher dimension?"

"Ahem--" Hannah said, attempting to stand up, but Amanda wrapped one leg around both of hers and made standing substantially less possible. "-- _eeeyeyeyee_."  She leaned forward in her seat--still her seat, no matter what that American said otherwise--but got no appreciable increase in height trying to escape Amanda's grasp. "You, uh, you have to stay two meters away beca... because if you... if you're in the radius, you get taken with it and you get turned inside out and you die like in that movie."

"That's a solid 85 if I ever heard one," the teacher said, tapping her canvas. "Technically the movie was not filmed as it was scripted. As a reminder, please read the script for Cube 2: Hypercube before our next class. Or you will die." She tugged a cigarette out of her vest pocket and lit up. "Five minute break, gotta get my nic fix." She took a long drag, sighed, and tapped a few ashes in the direction of her painting. Across the way, Sarah raised her hand and waved wildly. "What is it, bigger red?"

"M'am! Your cigarette ashes are spaghettifying!" Sarah pointed at the cigarette ashes hanging in the air, slowly elongating into twisted, gray shapes like a bad clone tool effect in Photoshop.

"Ah... frick. Okay, people, things have gone just a little wrong, I'll..." Her elbow began to stretch towards the painting, which was beginning to rotate from the third dimension into the fourth. "Get under your desks and don't look. This is gonna b--" Her head violently snapped out of place. The painting drew her in as it rotated into a shape like a painting-worm.

"he;p" Hannah said.

"Cho!" Amanda said, pushing their desk over and flopping onto the ground, taking cover behind the flipped desk. Her leg was still around Hannah's legs, and now Hannah was pinned under her.

"There we go. Safety at last," Amanda said.

Hannah made a whimpering noise.

"It's cool, babe." She put her chin on Hannah's head, just to the left of her ponytail, her ribbon tickling Amanda's cheek.

"...it is..." Hannah said.

"What was that~?"

"It's cool. That I'm safe. ...and that you're on top of me."

Amanda smirked. "Better believe it, pillow."


	5. Good Old-Fashioned Loverboy

_Requested by Comrade Kagari_

"Well, here we are at the--" Akko said, and a throwing knife sailed past her head so close she heard the faint _swish!_ of the blade scything a lock of hair away. It flew past her and embedded in a sign for Towercon 2018. "That was a real knife," she said, her neurons catching up with the present.

"It was!" Barbara said, rushing to Akko's side and turning her special lady's head around in her hands. "Nothing, no scratches, ear's fine, you're alright." She fussed with Akko's damaged hair, trying to make it look a little more even and to cover the sliver of cartilage the knife took off.

"You're sure about that?" Akko said. "'Cause I've got this like tingling going on."

"You're fine! You're fine."

"Cool! Nice!" She grabbed Barbara and scrambled for the nearest cover between them and the cosplayer going as the blindfolded knife juggler from book 28. The nearest cover was behind a booth in the artist's alley.

The artist looked away from their phone and at Akko and Barbara cowering behind a box of folders. "Hey," he said. "You're one of those ladies that saved the world, yeah?"

"I am!" Akko said.

"I helped," Barbara said, hugging Akko.

"Yes she did," Akko said, hugging her back.

"Thanks for that, I owe you one. Here, lemme get you some stickers or a button. Want something signed?"

"Sure!" Akko said.

"Wait!" Barbara said. "You're Em_Knife! The Tumblr artist who likes to draw all those--uh--you know--those pics that you know what I'm talking about that I don't know if it's okay to talk about them in person!"

"Y'mean all the gay erotica?" Em_Knife said. "You better believe it's cool to talk about. In fact, I've got this zine..." He gestured to a box behind the booth. The cover art was mostly obscured but Edgar and Arthur's hair colors and the tips of some spectacular implements peeked over the rim of the box.

Barbara's eyes sparkled. "C-c-c-c-can... can I..."

"Yes, you may," Akko said, kissing her cheek. "And if he says 'no' I'mma fight 'em!"

"No, it's cool, I was gonna give it to ya," Em_Knife said, signing the title page before slipping the book into a plain brown paper bag. "Keep me posted if you do something cool while you're here, a'ight?"

"Yes, sir!" Barbara said, taking the bag daintily.

"Thank you, Em_Knife," Akko said, nudging Barbara.

"Oh, right, thank you."

"Welcome," Em_Knife said. He returned to his phone, which, it did not surprise either Akko or Barbara to find, was tuned to Arthur/Edgar cosplay erotica.

* * *

The main event of Day 1 was located in the biggest of the convention halls. Akko and Barbara flopped into their VIP front-row seats. "Man, it's been like a billion years since the last time I saw that gnome girl," Akko said. "Or at least since the last time Lotte and her went and did stuff. Wonder what she's been up to?"

"Writing the next Night Fall, obviously," Barbara said, cuddling up to Akko.

"I mean, besides that. Lady's gotta have a hobby."

"Huh... I guess she does," Barbara said. "I don't know what I'd do if I was writing Night Fall. I'd probably just keep writing Night Fall. Awake and asleep, day in day out, Night Fall all day every day."

"Man, my hands would fall off..." Akko said.

The lights dimmed--or, well, they didn't have a dimmer switch, so the lights switched off and the emergency lights flickered on a moment later, with a spotlight (lamp from a department store fitted with an over-strong bulb) fixed on the stage (one step above the floor). The MC for the event simply cued up the theme song to the 2007 Night Fall movie "Night Fall: The Official Movie," and let Annabel Creme take over the rest.

A stagehand moved the lamp's focus from the center of the stage to a large black coffin propped against the wall, slightly off-center. The music swelled.

Akko whipped out her phone and started texting Lotte. "Yo lolo (heart emoji) the short one is about to happen!!!! were r u sittin?"

"Are you stuck in traffic?" Lotte texted back.

"no lol were at the con"

"We're not at a con. You're at the Hyatt Regency in London, right?"

"Where are we again?" Akko whispered to Barbara.

"She hasn't come out yet," Barbara said, cuddling up to Akko. "Is she gonna be okay? Is she overdosing on drugs in there? Is she dead and this is her announcement because Twitter is too gauche?!!" She sobbed hysterically into Akko's shoulder. The music continued and the audience waited and things were verging ominously into awkwardness. Akko typed up a storm.

"hang on google maps happenin"

She went to Google Maps, hit "my location," sent her location to her phone, and forwarded it to Lotte.

"!! You're in Birmingham!" Lotte texted. "We're in London planning on a light dinner!"

"so ur not at towercon?"

"No, Towercon is grossly incompetent. They've had a fake Annabel every third year."

"Wait..." Akko said. "Barb, remind me who Annabel is."

"Annabel Creme? The author of Night Fall?"

"Right! Right. 'Cause Lotte's having dinner with her in London and I am super sure she knows what she looks like and where she is. So... what unspeakable horror is in that coffin?!"

Barbara's crying ceased, which was nice, and the screaming began, which was suboptimal, but it was directly into Akko's chest, which... which was something, that's for sure. By now Barbara had abandoned her seat entirely and straddled Akko in her's.

"gon solve a problem brb" Akko typed, and slotted her phone into Barbara's seat pocket. "Gonna solve a problem," Akko said, "Be are be." She stared at the coffin and dared it to disgorge a zombie or mummy or opossum.

The coffin finally opened and a lady in one of those fancy motorized wheelchairs rolled out, legs crossed, eyes sunglassed, blonde hair worn in a high ponytail, live snake curled around her shoulders. "Hello all," the woman said. "As ever, Annabel Creme here. Pleased to meet you all at la..." She raised her glasses. "Wait a minute."

"Ohh, you're Aunt Daryl!" Akko said.

"Your aunt's Annabel Creme?!" a nearby Night Fall fan said.

"Oh, no, she's not my aunt, she's my buddy's aunt. She's got a snake thing going on!" She pointed at Daryl's snake, which pointed back, or at least looked at her, which is a snake's form of pointing. "Annabel Creme is like a midget or whatever the polite word for that is? And she can stand and stuff."

"Well, I can stand too!" Daryl said. "...Because I'm the real Annabel Creme! But I sprained my ankle, so I decided not to stand. Safety purposes." She took a sip from a hip flask.

Akko hopped to her feet and stormed the stage by taking three steps forward and turning her body to face the crowd, Barbara still attached, while keeping her head facing Daryl. "I'm Atsuko Kagari!" she said, projecting for the people in the back, "and I can vouch this is not the real Annabel Creme!"

The front half of the room gasped, and the back half gasped in a slow wave as the news spread.

"I'm Barbara Parker and I was there for that Night Fall thing where the blonde one won a pen and that was... a big deal? And some more magic happened I wasn't there for? So I'm sure she's right!" Barbara said. She hugged Akko tight, arms around her chest and legs around her hips.

"...can't... breathe..." Akko said through a toothy smile. Barbara unlatched from her.

"I contest this allegation the way I contest it best," Daryl said, drawing her wand. "Motherfuckin' _magic_."

"Behind me, Barb!" Akko said. She reached for her wand but Daryl got off a spell first; she grabbed Barbara and fell backwards onto the stage, a stream of magic venom spraying overhead and melting through the far wall. "Dammit, not the best start, here..." Akko mumbled, getting her wand at last. She jumped into the air from a prone position--somehow--firing off a barrage of projectile spells at the apex of her leap.

Daryl casually slapped them out of the way as Akko landed. Barbara clung to her leg and ducked behind her. "Please don't die," Barb said.

"Ain't plannin' on it," Akko said. "First things first, I'mma-- _shit!_ " Daryl fired another venom bolt at her and Akko just barely countered with a shield spell. Daryl sustained the spell, which ate at Akko's shield with unnerving speed. "Barb, little help?"

Barbara froze like a deer splashed with liquid nitrogen. "Uh!"

"Quickly, please!" Akko said, losing her footing as the spell kept cascading into her shield. "I kinda had help last time I fought--"

Barbara closed her eyes and screamed as she lunged at Daryl, running around the beam, grabbing the lamp, and bringing it down on her head, bulb-first, in one feverish burst of movement. She kept the lamp clamped onto Daryl's head, giving her a nice, lengthy shock as she jittered and shook in the now-electrified wheelchair. With a huff Barbara yanked the lamp away, reeled back, and whacked her across the back of the wheelchair, sending it rolling off the stage and crashing into an empty seat.

" _Aaahahahahahowww,_ " Daryl said, smoldering a little. Someone in row three threw a commemorative blanket over her to put her out before she set off the fire alarms.

"Phew!" Akko said, holstering her wand. "Thanks, babe! You did real--" Barbara trapped her in a bone-crushing hug. "--did real good, babe!"

"Hold me please," Barbara said, sniffling.

"Already there," Akko said, for she was.

"So that's not the real Creme?" some nerd shouted.

"Sorry, no!" Akko said.

"But that IS the real girl who saved the world and a girl who helped!" Em_Knife said. "I set 'em up with some of my best porn! They're legit!"

Polite applause.

Akko felt a disturbance in the Force, a premonition she acted on at once. "Babe," Akko whispered, "I really don't wanna ditch on these guys for the real Annabel. You know? Leavin' 'em out in the cold like this?"

"Akko, we should di--oh, you just said no." Barbara sighed into Akko's chest. What's with the chest action today? "But I don't know what I'm gonna do-o-o. I'm up in the spotlight, everybody's looking... I look at them and all I see is Hannah looking back and she's pointing and laughing."

"Hey," Akko said, tilting her chin upward. In the half second she spent gazing into Barbara's tearful eyes she thought of exactly who to plagiarize in the heat of the moment because romantic speeches were kind of her weak point. "I'm here, you know? When you and me do something that's weird and people might not like it, I never feel embarrassed or spooked or freaked. [All I feel is you."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_YY4W2ZTik)

Barbara sniffled. "Akko..."

"Come on. You've been writing that fan script, right? For a fanfilm? How about we put it on, right now? You'll never see a happier audience."

Barbara took a deep breath. "Okay," she said. "I'm calling Bella. Akko is gonna be... who do you wanna be?"

"I wanna be... the... werewolf... because I can transform. I think I have enough mana to pull off a couple transformations..."

"Alright--who wants to be Edgar?!" Barbara shouted, and an army of hands raised. "Then I guess we're gonna have to audition!"

"That's the spirit!" Akko said.

A decent convention experience ensued.

Akko and Barbara had lots of cosplay sex later.


	6. Lights in the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: THIS ONE IS THE SAD ONE (so far, the only sad one).

_Requested by "Mr. Birthday Boy"_

Akko couldn't sleep. She would nod off and jolt awake minutes later, as if falling out of her dream and back into her bed. So, employing her famed avoid-the-night-goblins sneaking skills, she crept out of her coven's dorm and snuck out into Luna Nova's grounds. Following some impulse she couldn't name--maybe a desire to double-check her notes for tomorrow's Comparative Thaumaturgy class--she made her way to the library. She snuck past the dozing librarian and got lost among the stacks, the silence so total she could hear the blood in her ears.

She didn't stop to read anything. Her body just needed to move, her eyes to dart from one title to the next, her hand to touch old leather and canvas and something wet and warm and tacky suddenly under her hand. She flinched away from the bookshelf, looking for what she had touched.

Blood.

She looked at her hand; her fingers were slick with fresh red. She sniffed the stuff, reflexively, and knew the smell at once. She looked away, ahead of her, and saw Lotte, slumping against the bookshelf, struggling to stay on her feet.

She was there, and she wasn't there; it was like imagining Lotte's presence so intensely Akko could see her in place, a phantasm she could almost touch. Lotte lost strength, fell to her knees, and flopped onto the ground. Her breathing, a ragged sound Akko could only now hear, slowed, and stopped.

The vision ended. Lotte wasn't there anymore. But Akko's hand was still damp with blood, rapidly cooling, and the blood smeared on the books had not gone away.

* * *

"Lotte. Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte Lotte!" Akko whispered, gently shaking Lotte's shoulder.

With trepidation Lotte awoke. In the darkness of their room she could feel Akko straddling her in her bed. "Akko?" she said. "What are you... is something happening?" She felt for her glasses out of reflex.

"Lotte," Akko said, "I went to the library and I saw you bleed out and die and I'm _kind of freaking out right now_."

"...saw me what?"

Akko explained in one long breath. Lotte mulled it over.

"That was my _etiäinen_ , Akko," Lotte said. "It's a... well... it's sort of like a reverse ghost. It's an image of someone still alive, doing something they have yet to do."

It was too long before Akko said what she said next. "You're going to die, Lotte?"

"No," Lotte said, touching Akko's face. "I promise. You saw, so we know. I'll... I'll stay away from the library, okay?"

"Or at least don't go without me. Okay? Promise? Or we can send Sucy. Or, uh, I guess we could ask someone else. Maybe ask Amanda. Or Diana. Constanze might help..."

Lotte pulled Akko into a hug. "They'll help. Someone will. I'll tell the teachers tomorrow, okay? Everything will be alright. Thank you for going out and seeing it, Akko. Thank you for finding it out."

Akko sniffled, trying not to cry into Lotte's hair.

She didn't sleep sleep that night. That first day she was at Lotte's side from dawn to the last hour of the school day, even skipping one of her classes to attend one of Lotte's. It wouldn't be until that afternoon, after her last class, that she slumped back into the dorm, Lotte's hand in hers, and slid into her bunk, closed her eyes, and fell into a dreamless darkness. Lotte sat beside her for a long time, holding her hand and thinking about her coming death.

Surely there was a way around it.

* * *

For almost two weeks, nothing.

On the third day, the gloom began to lift from Akko's expression. By the fifth day, she was comfortable letting Lotte go to Blytonbury with Barbara for a Night Fall fan meeting while she helped Diana with fish thaumatolinguistics. At the tenth day, Akko could sleep in her own bunk.

On the evening of the fourteenth day, Akko kissed Lotte goodnight and climbed down to her bunk and settled in for an early evening. Lotte waited for her soft snoring and climbed down, one rung at a time, padding across the floor in stocking feet. Sucy rose from her bed, not yet asleep, and smirked at her.

"Still got cold feet about the vision-of-your-impending-death thing, huh?" she said, just above a whisper.

"You could say," Lotte said. "And I know it's still eating at Akko. I just want to... you know... be safe."

"And you're gonna do this by walking out into the woods. The woods with all the monsters in them."

"And very, very far away from where Akko saw me... saw a vision of me," Lotte said. "I'm going to ritually bind a hisii to myself. I'll be tough as an ox."

"Almost as tough as Akko."

"Yeah!" Lotte said, nearly shouting, and flinched. Akko stayed asleep. "Stupid, stupid..." she mumbled. "Yeah. I'll be safe. She'll be safe. It'll all be fine."

"Alright," Sucy said. "Lemme pour some potions.  Then we go tuck this sucker in."

* * *

Akko's phone rang. She reached for it, wishing the sleep out of her system as she hit the green answer button. "Yeah?" she said quietly, mindful of her roomies.

Heavy breathing, static. "--ck, it's fin--ough. Akko, can y--can you hear me?"

"Sucy?" Akko said.

"Are you still in the room?" Sucy said. Her voice was ragged and strained.

"I... are you not?" Akko flashed her phone at Sucy's bed; the light played across messy sheets and nothing else. "Sucy, where..."

"We're in the forest, Akko. Some shit went down."

"For... why?" Akko said, struggling to get out of bed and into something fit for a jaunt into the forest. "Why are you--"

"Lotte," Sucy said. "She... she had to..."

Akko gestured for her broom and it flew into her hand with a strength and ferocity she had yet to manage for all her practice. "Sucy," she said, "tell me exactly where you are."

* * *

Akko hurtled through the treeline at top speed, barely able to thread through the trees. Her arms and legs and face bore dozens of scratches and deeper cuts from branches and vines lashing her skin; her blood flowed steadily in the warm and muggy August night. Akko was aware of her injuries, but she didn't really feel them. All things were second to reaching Sucy's spell, a languid bolt of lightning that struck the sky from the earth and swayed in the wind.

She dove for the ground, swinging the broom around for drag, and skidded to a hard stop a few yards from where Sucy lay at the base of a tree. Akko brought out her wand, a light spell illuminating Sucy's condition: half her dress was stained with spilled blood, her hand keeping a torn flap held in place over her side, her hand soaked with indigo blood. "Hey, Akko," she said, panting.

Akko felt her expression harden and she had no word for what it was she was expressing.

"I'm... I'll make it," Sucy said. "I chugged every health potion I had. You should've seen me a few minutes ago." She took Akko's glare for a few moments before continuing. "Lotte, she... she didn't wanna worry you..."

"What did she do?" Akko said. Her voice didn't sound like her voice should. She didn't feel anything about it, not now, but it was so different she couldn't ignore it.

"She... she told me... she was gonna bind a spirit to herself. Some Finnish thing. But... when we got here... she started... she started invoking... you know, the family witchgod. Ithaqua."  
Something stung Akko's cheek. She touched it reflexively and felt cold water. She glimpsed up.

It was snowing.

"I don't think she pulled a hisii," Sucy said. "And I don't know if she really pissed Ithaqua off or... or she didn't. And I don't know which is worse." She pulled up the torn flap of dress, revealing a chunk of flesh bitten away, slowly rebuilding with magic. "I sc... I think I scared her off... or she didn't like how I tasted. Good day to be half-freak, huh...?"

"Where did she go?" Akko said.

"I don't know," Sucy said, eye wide and pleading. "I don't know."

* * *

It took a little time. But Akko found her.

She found her in a clearing in the woods, a break in the trees. The grass had frosted over. Behind her as Akko stepped into the presence of Lotte she heard clumps of snow fall from burdened branches and splash into heaps.

There was no starlight. There was no need. A light burned in Lotte's chest, nested just below her ribs, bright enough to be visible through her clothes. In the light it cast Akko could see how Ithaqua had stolen Lotte away from her. The soft edges of her features were gone. One glasses lens was cracked like a dropped mirror; the other was missing its lens entirely. An antler was growing from the vacant socket and through the frame of her glasses. Her mouth was dark, shades of flowing dark. What had she tasted besides Sucy?

She was kneeling when Akko found her. When Akko entered the clearing, she stood, turning to face her. She shoved a paw into her mouth, the gnawed remnants of some animal's leg, and chewed, bone and nails crunching in her new, monstrously powerful jaws.

"Lotte," Akko said, raising her wand, "it's me. I'm here for you."

Lotte stared at her blindly, sniffing the air, mouth open, ichor pouring from her open mouth.

"I love you," Akko said, her voice breaking. "God, Lotte, I love you so much. I just... I don't... I can't see my life without you in it. I need you. And... and I... I..."

What could she say? What words could possibly mean anything here and now, in the face of the absurd?

Lotte shrieked so loud that her voice cracked and lunged for Akko.

There was a fight. It was a good one; Akko gave as good as she got with spell and fist alike, and Lotte, beloved of Ithaqua, the Walker on the Wastes, clawed and bit and shrieked, the sound the desolate noise of the wind in arctic wastes no man can survive.

It soon came to pass that Lotte bit Akko's wand-hand until the bones split between her teeth and Akko's wand fell to the well-trod snow, lost amid the footprints of two women locked in fatal struggle. Akko's next conscious thought was the realization that she held in her good hand a fallen tree branch, old and sturdy and strong.

There was a disconnect with reality; and when her senses returned, her hands, good and broken alike, were clenched around the makeshift spear. The point, she saw, was buried in Lotte's ribcage. Hot glowing blood poured from the wound down the haft and to her hands.

The two were locked in place near the edge of the clearing, not at the line of trees, but at the far end, which Akko saw was at a small cliff face.

Lotte's remaining eye met with hers. The inhuman ferocity melted away and only Lotte remained.

"Akko?" she said.

"Lotte?" Akko said.

"I think... I think I hurt Sucy."

Akko's grip slipped in the blistering-hot blood pouring from Lotte's fatal wound, and Lotte slipped back and fell ten feet, her small body cracking against the frost-rimed stone below.  
Akko's wand was lost somewhere nearby. So was her broom. But those were far from her mind. She scrambled down the cliff face with her good hand and a need for her girlfriend to live. She fell halfway down the cliff, landing hard on her backside and forcing the air out of her lungs.

Lotte slumped against the stony wall. She was facing Akko. She couldn't make out her expression in the darkness. Her voice was nearly lost to the snow, even as it tapered off.

"I'm sorry, Akko," she said. She slumped forward, the wall holding her weight, and Akko knew exactly what was going to happen. "I... I wan..." She lost strength, fell to her knees, and flopped to the frosty earth.

Akko's body was far, far away; her consciousness was a balloon tied to a piece of twine tied to a ship in a hurricane. She saw her body more than feel it trudge through the ice, slipping more than once, to a woman she knew was dead.

She touched Lotte's neck. Her lips. Felt for breath. Stared at her remaining eye, waiting for a blink.

[Stillness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd0nIsGHIvc).

Three hundred and thirty-three hours after Akko witnessed Lotte's _etiäinen_ , it had come to pass, and in spite of Akko's presence, Charlotte Jansson had died alone.

The world fell away.


	7. Touch: I Need Something More

_Requested by Nekomomo_

Constanze placed MotU Classics Mosquitor on the table, posed looking down the sights of his needle-nose blaster; clipped to his left bicep was an extra Hordak bat-familiar to up his defenses. He was flanked, Clamp Champ closing in on his shielded left side, ready to snip him down, Grizzlor, his own partner, bearing down heedless of a gun being pointed at his head. Atop a nearby tree, Queen Grayskull watched, lost in time and hopelessly confounded, yet certain something must be done, preparing to make a decision which would change the fate of everyone involved.

Constanze gestured grandly at the setup: the toys, the diorama of a babbling brook cutting through a rolling, hilly glen with a tall, sturdy tree growing in it.

"Bitchin'," Amanda said, leaning over to pick up Mosquitor. "So he's like a mosquito mon--"

Constanze made a loud noise.

"--ster?" Amanda said. "Yo, Cons, what's up with you?"

She grabbed Mosquitor out of her hand, posed him properly, and placed him back once more. She turned back around, balled fists on her hips, and growled at her.

"Man, don't show me a toy and then ask me not to play with it! That's like eating food in front of me, or flashin' fat stacks, or drinking or... you get me, right? Like a dog, baby." She cracked a pretend whip: "Wha- _pish_!"

Fuming, Constanze grabbed her slate and jotted a sentence on it. By the time she turned around to show it to Amanda, Amanda had gone, the door to her collectibles room clicking shut. Cons stood there in silence for a good few seconds before furiously rubbing the slate clean on her belly. She stomped to a beanbag chair and jumped into it face-first, the mass _floof!_ ing around her as she disappeared into it.

Stupid, stupid Cons. It's not like she was going to throw him against a wall or pull him apart. Or lose his accessories. Or toss him into the river. Or bury him without telling her, or...

The old memories of that bastard kid next door came flooding back. It wasn't until he obliterated one of her dad's old Masters figures that he caught on to how much of a jerk the kid was, and hopefully finally got a stern talking-to from his parents. Or he didn't and was now shoplifting cigarettes when not in jail.

Cons groaned into the chair's yielding mass.

No, Amanda was not Henry The Bastard. She was bigger than Cons, like Henry, and stronger, and faster, and more spirited, and a faster talker, and really a talker at all. But Henry was just a bully who liked to make Cons fume and squeal. Amanda was an inveterate thief but she only stole from people who could more than kick her ass if she was caught. She had no tolerance for bullies. She used her strength wisely, like Prince Adam upholding the secret of He-Man to better protect Eternia even at the cost of looking like a fool. (She had MotU on her mind, sue her.)

Not just that. Everybody at school was a witch, but Amanda was a wizard: she could glide in and out of any situation like she'd dictated all the rules at the beginning, picking up on cues social and physical that Constanze couldn't begin to receive. She bantered with Akko, even bossed her around, and all Constanze could do was survive her. She was sexy. She could present male or female, and either way she was hot, desirable; she had a fan club, for Daoloth's sake. Constanze had fought a nanomagitech horror in a giant robot and she didn't have a fan club. She invited Amanda to join her toy photography and she yelled at her when she showed curiosity.

Stupid, stupid Cons.

Socially, empathically, Cons was AM. Amanda was FM.

Constanze lifted her head from the beanbag chair, feeling her cheeks wet with the tears smeared across its smooth artificial surface. "Idiot," she said.

She turned over, sat up, and punched her leg, enough that her knuckles stung and her flesh stung, tender, in the cool air. She didn't feel any better.

When she didn't feel good, like, when she didn't feel good at all, there was one woman above all others she trusted.

* * *

Jasminka nodded. "Here, hold Gregory. I'll make you a treat." Jasminka handed over a possum, one of a handful that had avoided getting shipped off to Possum Springs and so became the last of Jasminka's soft pets. They had to share her underground pet room with all of her Goliath bird-eating tarantulas, but as a rule possums don't really mind a lot of things. Gregory was a fat, cross-eyed possum, less warm than he should be, but he stared at Constanze and didn't fuss when she stroked his woolly fur.

Jazzy's oven was a portable magic oven, her ingredients drawn from some otherspace or the other. At present her oven was set up in a corner the tarantulas weren't overly fond of; the tarantulas, you see, she let wander free inside the Tarantula Hole, along with the possums they left well enough alone. To help keep Jazzy's more fragile, stupid pets safe, Cons invented a tiny laser wand that clipped harmlessly onto the possums' heads and could ward off predators and students who thought they were giant rats, and it is a little-known fact that Goliath bird-eating tarantulas have an instinctive fear of laser weaponry. Ironic, for the clouds of stinging hairs they could fling would surely reduce the effectiveness of a laser--but Cons was lost in thought.

"So, Amanda!" Jasminka said, whipping some egg whites at a high speed. "She's a tricky one, isn't she?"

Constanze nodded. Gregory wrapped his hairless tail around Cons's arm.

"Mm-hm! A free spirit. Apparently Texan! You know, most people from America, when they're traveling, they'll say they're from America. But Texans will tell people they're from Texas. That's Amanda right there." She opened an oven door and slid in a tray of little cookies, and turned the oven around, opened another door, and slid in a few rolls. "You know what I mean?"

Constanze shook her head.

"Me neither." Jasminka set a double-boiler on the stovetop, tossing in handfuls of dark chocolate chips. "I was trying to do the 'wise old person' or 'wise quirky guy' or 'wise minority...'" She prodded at the chips with a wooden spoon as they began to melt. "Maybe I should just do a 'me.'"

Gregory climbed onto Constanze's head.

"You like her, right?"

"Mmhm," Constanze said (emitted as a noise?).

"Well, you can't leave her in the dark too long, or she might find someone else. So you need to declare your intent!" She kicked a corner of the stove, opening both doors. A possum wearing a specially-designed oven mitt helmet took out the cookies; a tarantula in oven mitt armor slid the bread pan out onto itself. She spooned out tall wads of fluffy, sweetened egg white onto the cookies, poured melted dark chocolate over the cookie-egg-white stacks, plated the cookies, plated the buns, and carried them over to the little table Cons sat at.

Constanze took a brötchen and sliced it open with a little butter knife by her plate. She took a few of the schokokuss cookies, stuffed them into the bun, and squished them together in a cookie-fluff-chocolate mass and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. Damn but could Jazzy cook. Gregory stared at the sandwich, though it was hard to tell if he was doing so longingly or because that's just what he was doing at the moment.

"But let me guess: just straight up tellin' her is like seeing a canon about to fire and going 'I'm gonna jump in front of that and see what happens.'"

"Mhm." She pointed at her sandwich, then at Gregory.

"Oh, no, don't feed him that. He's on a weight-loss diet. Poor lil' guy. Maybe give him a grape when you're done."

"Mhm." The two ate in silence, Cons her single rich sandwich. Jasminka had two, plus a backup fluffernutter for the occasion and a few Oreos she had in a secret Oreo compartment. The mitten possum body-checked the oven doors to close them, for Jasminka had forgot, and the helper tarantula started cleaning the dishes.

"So..." Jasminka hummed. "What's a way you can tell her?"

Cons had a vague idea. She scribbled a short sentence on her slate and showed it to Jazzy.

"Ooh, an interesting idea. I say give it a shot!"

Cons nodded.

"And if you need any help, you have me. Okay?"

Cons extended a thumbs up. Jasminka returned it.

* * *

Two weeks, a fabrication spell, and a lot of nights slaving over very finicky camera timing later, it was movie night in the Cons Cave, and for whatever reason it was just Amanda there.

"Forget to post the meet-up poster, Cons?" Amanda said as Constanze set up the projector.

Cons made a little noise. She held up a comment card: "It's just you and me tonight."

"Sure," Amanda said, kicking back in her folding chair. Constanze sat with one chair of distance between them. The lights dimmed and the projector played a video on the white sheet tacked onto the wall.

The camera panned over Constanze's collectibles room.

"Oh, wait, is this gonna be..." Amanda said; Constanze shushed her. "Fine, fine. But there better be some porn in this."

The camera settled on the brook diorama Amanda saw when last she set foot in Cons's toy chamber. After a long moment, a toy Constanze walked into view, an action figure in scale with the He-Man toys (presuming they were all exactly six feet tall, anyway). She whistled, then stepped a little off-screen and tugged a toy Amanda onto the screen.

"Woah, hey, it's a little plastic me!" Amanda said, laughing. "That's creepy!"

Toy Cons walked a disinterested Toy Amanda over to Mosquitor; Toy Cons fluttered around him, smitten by his buggish muscularity, while Amanda tried to steal his gun from his hands. After a lot of prying, Mosquitor suddenly moved, whacking Amanda about the head with the handle of his gun; Toy Amanda countered by wrestling him to the ground.

"Oh, hey now," Amanda said, "little toy me is kind of a badass."

A merry battle ensued. Toy Amanda wound up defeating Mosquitor by popping his arms and legs out of the sockets (ball-jointed toy designed with interchangeable limbs, no problems there, Cons thought to herself to assuage the wrinkly feeling in her gut, the same she had when filming that scene). She posed triumphant with Mosquitor's gun-arm over her head, then looked over to Toy Constanze, who was now in the grips of Clamp Champ. Toy Amanda shrugged and jostled Mosquitor's arm, firing a bolt at the rogue warrior.

Cons had to look away when Grizzlor entered the fray. She simply could not figure out how to get the fur to cooperate, and so in motion it looked like he was caught in a nest of fans all pointed in different directions. But to her relief Amanda was still interested, wearing a big smile and cheering on her toy version as she struggled against the Heroic Warrior and Hordesman.

Toy Amanda stood triumphant, one leg planted on the Mosquitor-Grizzlor-Clamp Champ stack, raising Mosquitor's gun into the air and spraying lasers into the sky. After a beat, a chunk of ceiling bopped her on the head. "Ha!" Amanda said.

Praise be to the Revelator, Cons was worried about that one. Jasminka suggested the joke, reasoning that Amanda would like a little slapstick at her own expense. She was right, and that eased the tension a little.

Now all that remained was [the last minute of the show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Gkhol2Q1og).

Queen Grayskull glided down, the rescued Toy Constanze in her arms. She set the little lady on the ground and ushered for her to go. Toy Cons stepped over to the pile of defeated foes and climbed on top of them (and that had taken far more takes and shots than Cons would care to admit), standing precariously on Clamp Champ's back. Toy Amanda looked at her as Toy Cons whipped out a slate and scribbled something on it. She lifted it up to Toy Amanda, who reacted ambiguously; the phrase "To Be Continued..." appeared onscreen.

The lights came up.

"You made that, huh?" Amanda said, smiling at Constanze. "That was cool. What's the plan for part--" Constanze reached across the vacant chair and took her hand. "--oh, is there some kinna..."

Constanze tugged her hand and nodded her head in the direction of her toy cave.

"...Okay..." Amanda said. Constanze hopped out of her seat and led Amanda to her collectibles room, Amanda keeping pace effortlessly even as Cons all but sprinted to her room. She couldn't let her see just how embarrassed she was. She was absolutely certain it was going to be a huge disaster, but there was no way she could turn back now.

She took Amanda to the brook diorama. There were only two toys there, Constanze's custom Classics figure, standing on a rock for height, and Amanda's, brand new and with Amanda's easygoing smirk painted on its face. Together, they held up a cardstock sign that looked like Cons's message slate.

_Amanda O'Neill, Will You Please Date Me?_

Amanda blinked, read the sign, looked at the toys, looked at the sign, and at last, looked at Constanze.

Constanze was trembling, chewing on her lip, struggling to avoid eye contact. After a while, she muttered a single word: "...please?"

Amanda smiled. She took a knee and scooped up Constanze in a hug. "That was the most extra thing you could've done to ask me out," Amanda said. "You coulda just asked, you know."

Cons squeezed her back, a Jasminka-like bear hug that surprised both of them. With her face pressed against Amanda's shoulder, they both felt her terrified grimace wrench into a giant, lopsided smile.

"Sorry I fussed with your toys without, like, asking. Is that what that was about?" Amanda said.

"Doesn't matter," Cons said, holding her. Her voice hurt from saying so many syllables in a row.

"A'ight. Come on, 'Stanze. Let's get a drink."

Jasminka hovered in front of the door. "Did somebody say drink?"

"Yo, can you make like a milkshake I can get fucked up on?" Amanda said.

"I can," Jasminka said, "and I will."

Constanze held up two fingers.

"Make that two~" Jazzy tittered, and off she went to the ice cream and liquor cabinet.


	8. Cruel to be Kind

"He-e-e-ey, Cons," Sucy said, holding out a homemade chocolate peanut butter cup across the lunch table. The top was a solid block of chocolate, the bottom a thick layer of frozen peanut butter candy. It had a strong aroma of peanut butter and a certain herbal scent that Constanze couldn't place but which smelled frankly amazing. "I made you something, Constanze. You wan' it~?"

Constanze hopped up onto her seat, her expression... well, it was always focused, so her expression was fairly normal.

"Catch~!" Sucy said, gently tossing the peanut butter cup at her.

Cons hopped into the air like a breaching salmon and caught the cup in the air.

"Good girl," Sucy said, patting Cons's head as she took a long, slow bite through the frozen treat. It took her nearly five minutes to finish off the treat, such was how thick and chewy it was, and

Sucy watched her consume it all. Cons gave her another thumbs up once she was done, and walked over to the food line to get another carton of milk. "Yes," she said. "What a good little German girl."

* * *

"...so don't actually do that," Prof. Polyphema said. "Now, can someone volunteer to demonstrate pyrourgy as opposed to pyromancy in the strictest sense of the word?" She waited for someone in Applied Elementalism to volunteer.

Constanze raised her hand before remembering Polyphema's cyclops-eye face covering blocked her vision entirely and so made a noise.

"Student approximately four rows up and to the left, please approach the podium," Polyphema said, stepping to the side inside a circle of protection.

Constanze pushed her chair back, stepped out, and walked towards the stairs leading down. When her foot touched the first step, reality threw out of whack. She nearly tripped. Why was the ground so tricky all of a sudden? It was like she was on a ship in a pitched sea. She felt very dry. Why was she so thirsty? She could feel the redness in her eyes.

"I sense a great disturbance," Polyphema said. "Please, try not to be so disturbed. There is little I can do for you."

Hannah and Barbara laughed from their vantage point two rows up. "Did all your inner-ear fluids spill out, you little Kraut bitch?" Hannah said.

"It's so sad you forgot how to goose step!" Barbara said. "Now the Fuhrer will never take you to the prom!"

Constanze fixated her gaze on the Hate Twins. Their laughter was like the sound of knives in the dark. Hannah covered her mouth with one hand, the better to conceal a killing spell she must surely be casting; Barbara was pointing and laughing, channeling killing mana into her where she stood. The hairs rose on her arms, a symptom of static electricity buildup in the moment before a fatal stroke of lightning.  Secret warlock assassins chanted killing oaths to God-Jesus. A spider breathed poison nearby. The American presidency continued existing in its current state--

Constanze armed her wand rifle and mag-dumped a full charge of fire magic into Hannah and Barbara.

"Yes, student!" Polyphema said. "Projection of energy is characteristic of pyrourgy! Pyromancy is, in the strictest--" Her voice was steady and encouraging, the better to let Constanze down when she flunked her at the end of that breath. Everybody was looking. Everybody was waiting. Ten thousand thousand eyes were undressing her, preparing her for dissection, she had to go, she had to Space-Move--

Constanze ran for the window, shooting it out with generic magic bolts and hurling herself out into the campus outside. From the shouting, she blasted a few other students on her way... wherever.

"Alright. Who would like to volunteer--" Polyphema said.

"I'M BURNING TO DEATH!" Hannah and Barabra said, tangled in each others' arms as they tried to put themselves out with each other.

"Yes, students! That is an example of divining future information through the medium of flame, that is to say, pyromancy." She put on a brave face and tried not to think about heroin and how she wanted to take it.

Sucy, silent and happy, watched the havoc her girlfriend had sewn and felt the love of the universe flow into her.

* * *

"Dang it, Sucy, what did you do to her?!" Akko said, pointing at Constanze's armored-up sniper nest built on one of the triple statues of Mormo in that one central courtyard, you know the one. Punctuating her pointing was a scorching ray lighting Sarah on extra-tall fire as she tried to walk back to her dorm.

"Oh, why must you accuse me?" Sucy said.

"Because _you_ insisted on sitting _alone_ with _Constanze_ at _lunch_ and I saw you making _weed candy_ last night and _Cons-smells-like-weed_!" She jabbed Sucy in the boobs at every italicized word. Sucy wasn't sure whether to make her stop or make her do it more.

"Well, anyway," Sucy said, "she's just having a bad trip, she'll ride it out."

"Yeah, no!" Akko said. "You just poisoned your girlfriend and she's lighting people on fire with a ray gun and she's gonna come out of that freaked the flip out! She only comes out to swim in the fountain with her eyes wide open and breath-drink fountain water and pennies or whatever you guys have in the UK, pieces of eight maybe!"

"I'm not from the UK," Sucy said. "Anyway, I have a--"

Akko grabbed her arm.

"Let. Me. Go," Sucy snarled.

"No. You gotta be responsible with your lady-friends or you're just a huge jerk."

"Akko, I poison you all the fucking time and you like it."

"One, no I don't, and two--" Akko grabbed a nearby antique mirror and smashed it over her head, releasing a swarm of angry ghosts. "Look at me! I'm barely even bleeding!" She blinked through a shower of blood gushing from her scalp. "But Constanze is a sweet little flower of Teutonic womanhood! You treat her like me, you're going to break her from heart to body-heart." She turned Sucy around. "Now go fix her or I'll have to fix her for you."

"Don't you protagonize your way into my relationship," Sucy said.

"I won't if you do your wifely duties!"

"We're not married and will never be married! We're gonna live in sin with a network of dubcon sex slaves!"

"Sure, whatever!" She kicked Sucy actually on the ass and knocked her closer to Constanze's nest.

Sucy slithered forward, anticipating getting shot. Instead, a hatch opened in the sniper's nest and a grappling hook flew out, wrapping around her waist. Constanze yanked her into the nest.  
It was actually pretty cozy. It was a classic ten-by-ten-foot room, the floor padded with pillows and a soft blanket, a bluetooth speaker humming some low-fi hip hop study beats, a Stanbo providing air conditioning and spotting services. Cons had stripped down to--

Sucy had to take a mental step back.

Constanze had stripped down to her undershirt and red modesty shorts. She popped the hookshot accessory off her wand rifle and stowed it. Her eyes were red. "Murder time," Constanze muttered.

"So, two things..." Sucy said. "One--actually, make it three things. Mind if I make myself comfy too?"

Cons nodded. Sucy wriggled out of her dress. Constanze stared. In the grips of her body-brain misery, the movement of Sucy, the sharp turns of her hips, the serpentine wave of her midsection, seemed to convey cosmic truth. "There we go. Mm. Alright, back on track..." She took a moment to arrange pillows for more comfortable seating. "Right, back to what I was gonna say. Namely: you are so very, very hot right now. Mm!" She licked her lips. "The red eyes, the shooting people, the way you dragged me in here... baby, you know how to get me rolling." She shimmied like a snake with an itch.

"And," Sucy said, coming to a stop, "also, here's a lemon drop." She revealed a wrapped candy in her hand. In two motions she unwrapped it and in one more she threw it at Constanze underhanded. It bopped off her forehead and landed in the sheets. Cons absently felt for it and popped it in her mouth. "Go ahead, give it a suck, that'll help with the dry mouth. You got dry mouth, don't you?"

Cons felt around in her mouth and nodded.

"Cool. Excellent." Sucy pondered her next word sat length. "So, confession time, I sort of put a lot of Eternal Waking Nightmare into that peanut butter cup I gave you. That's the masocore weed strain for people who wanna feel really paranoid and anxious for a few hours. Trufax, I just thought it'd be hilarious. And in my defense so far it has been--" Constanze snuck the barrel of her wand rifle into Sucy's mouth. She attempted to say "--alright, let's talk about this rationally."

And of course Cons was starting to cry. She was sniffling, her nose was doing that rabbity thing. "Why?" she said.

Sucy popped her mouth off of Constanze's implement. "Well," she said, and trailed off. "Well, you know how I like to poison Akko, like, constantly?"

"No?"

Sucy flinched. "Well, I kinda like to poison Akko. A bunch. Really strong magical poisons, curses, hexes, sometimes I just give her a shitton of cyanide and see where it goes from there. It's great fun."

["...Why?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9X4rZAA4y8)

Sucy thought long and hard. "Well... it's what my family does. On my dads' side, it's what the Tcho-Tcho do as a species. Poison people, call up Shugoran to eat peoples' lungs, poke Rhan-Tegoth to see if he wakes up... and on my mom's side, we just do it for fun. And I guess I'm my parents' daughter. You know? I mean, you collect all those He-Man toys, and your dad got you into that, so it's like we're both into our parents' hobbies."

Constanze dropped her wand rifle. After one more long pause and gathering strength, she sputtered, "You're mean." She crossed her arms and looked away and flopped into her bedding, crying quietly.

A new, painful emotion entered Sucy's heart. She had read about it, studied it academically, dismissed it out of hand as a filthy human lie. But was there any other word for what she felt? Regret. The feeling she shouldn't have done something. That she'd made... a mistake.

"Constanze?" she said.

Cons didn't look her way, though her head tilted just a little towards Sucy.

"I'm sorry. That was wrong of me. And I wish you weren't feeling like crap just because I thought it was funny. Here..." She dug around in her discarded belt's ingredients bag. "Here's a few CBD shots. They'll counteract the THC and make you calm down faster." They were in little plastic bottles, like 5 Hour Energy, but the exact opposite. She threw them underhanded at Constanze, who grabbed, uncapped, and drank them all down. "And, ah..." She tapped her wand against the wall. A little portal appeared, pouring out cool refrigerator mist. She reached inside and felt around. "Let's see... here's some water for you..." She threw a bottle at Constanze, who caught it without hesitation. "...and when you get the lemon taste out of your mouth, here's a Flake bar." She wriggled the gold-wrapped bar at Cons, who snatched it out of her hand.

Sucy waited, watching Cons crunch down the crumbly chocolate bar and sip cold water and let soft music play. She literally twiddled her thumbs. What else was she gonna do? Look up porn on her phone?

Cons crumpled up the wrapper and threw it at the furthest corner from her and Suce. She regarded Sucy.

Sucy smiled at her with as much friendliness as a mouth full of lamprey-like fangs could manage.

Constanze pat her lap. Sucy padded over on all fours and curled up there; Cons stroked her sides and belly like a cat. Sucy made pleasant noises. Cons was fascinated with Sucy's midsection, and who could blame her? Between Diana's dexterous hips, Akko's brick wall of abs, and Sucy's cold-blooded grace, there were plenty of inviting abdomens in Luna Nova, and hers was clearly the superior option.

"This calm you down?" Sucy said.

Cons nodded.

"Then keep at it, babe. I'm all the woman you need to keep your head glued on. Oh--and if you feel the urge to nap, take it. You'll be fine by the time you wake up. Promise." She gave her an okay sign, and her girlfriend gave her one back. "Awesome. As you were, Constanze."

The two spent a long time together in the box, only leaving when Nelson fired a few shotgun slugs at it to get them to leave the statue of Mormo alone.  
Sucy carried Constanze, who had fallen asleep with her head on her belly. She kept asleep as Sucy carried her from the sniper nest to the dorms, curled up in a fetal position, head resting against Sucy's chest, her arms and legs twitching. She was dreaming. Something nice, Sucy hoped, though that particular thought had to be tamped down: a nice sex dream, or a nice replay of burning Hannah and Barbara.

Nobody dared tell Sucy to put her clothes back on. Fine by her.

* * *

 

Constanze kicked awake. She raised her head, bleary-eyed, and tried to orient herself. She wasn't in the sniper nest. She wasn't in her workshop. She wasn't on her bunk bed. She was in the same basic location as her bunk bed, but it wasn't... oh, it was Sucy's bed. And Sucy was sleeping next to her.

She was sleeping much more lightly than Cons. She yawned. "Morning, fraulein. You feel alright?"

Cons licked her lips and blinked. Her eyes were wet and clear. Her mouth and throat felt adequately damp. And her head wasn't hurting and terror didn't infuse everything in the world. In fact, she was feeling... warm. Like she'd just stepped out of a hot bath or jaccuzi. And she felt quite sensitive, like she'd been in that bath or hot tub a little too long. But not the bad kind of too long. Was that a thing?

"...that a ye-e-es?" Sucy said.

Cons nodded and kissed Sucy's forehead.

"Cool. Neat." Sucy yawned. "Hey, before I go back to bed. I promise--no more pranks. Okay?"

Cons nodded.

"Not just with you. Not with the crew either, not with either of our crews. That okay? That amenable?"

Cons nodded again, and she gave Sucy a patented Albrechtsberger Eskimo kiss.

"Cool. Alright then, laters." Sucy turned around, put her head on her pillow, and fell promptly asleep.

Constanze lay next to her. Sucy slept like a Nosferatu every night and all attempts at coercing her out of that pose had failed. And so, she didn't fight it. Cons wormed under the sheets, put her head on Sucy's belly, feeling it rise gently with her breath, felt her smooth, slippery skin, warm under her face, and soon fell asleep again, her arm wrapped around Sucy's legs.

Outside the dorm, Akko checked her phone. "It's nine o'clock," she said.

"Since when did our room have a lock?" Lotte said, yawning. "Did Sucy install one without us asking?"

"I think she did," Akko said. "So get your muscles ready, we're breaking in."


	9. The Book of Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Lotte.

_Requested by Chill LWA (with particular regards to Edgar)_

_May 19:_ I never thought I'd get to use the phrase "canceling the apocalypse" in real life, but here we are, in a world where you helped do exactly that. Lotte, you're a miracle, you know that? It wasn't you the entire world saw, but I listened to you talk about how long it took to get the smell of ozone out of your hair.

Because Sucy realized the smell was stuck in her hair, too, and she didn't say why, but it made her terribly nervous and irritable, and you knew how much of a problem that was, so you figured something out. You talked the spirit of the scent out of her hair and sent it away. And she felt better, and then you fixed your own hair.

That's just how you do things, Lotte.

I said goodbye, and I guess I didn't get across that I meant it in the hardest way I could say goodbye. Dad wasn't comfortable on Luna Nova, and he especially wasn't comfortable with the "New Nine." But seeing how happy you were, especially after Akko finally flew, well, I couldn't... I didn't have it in me. You asked when we could meet again and I told you. And now I'm here thinking up excuses.

Wish me luck.

 _June 9:_ A long day in Blytonbury turned into a long night back home explaining to my dad what I was doing. I forgot to turn off my Facebook location--or maybe it never turns off--and he saw where I was and who I was with and he had questions, and as always I could never manage it.

So that's going to be a problem.

I'm in my room writing and I'm thinking about today. Tea in a magic item shop. At play in the museums. We walked through alleys a thousand years old and you spoke to urban spirits scarcely younger.

If it's possible, I'll see you again.

 _July 14:_ I was in London, you were in London, and dad was busy, and I left my phone at the hotel suite, and we snuck away to play Tsar Realms. You played against yourself to show me how it worked, then let me win a few games before I asked you to take the brakes off. Needless to say I didn't last long at all. I've got the app now, Lotte. That was an excuse that worked: I got caught up learning to play a new game and I kicked back and relaxed rather than face the hustle and bustle.

I love that trick you do, the one-handed shuffle. It's mind-blowing. It's in the wrist, you said, and I've been practicing with a pack of cards I'm never without. It's turned into about a dozen games of 52 Pickup. I'm wondering if "it's all in the wrist" was just a movie quote and you were pulling my leg.

One instant message to Akko (I know you said to save it for emergencies, but I asked and Akko said it was) and I know and I'll record it here for posterity: no, you haven't seen Big Trouble in Little China, and if we see each other again, I'll have to catch you up.

Play like a star, Lotte.

 _July 28:_ I thought about you today somewhere in the tenth hour of twenty-four we're stuck on the Texas Eagle. We're in the US for some politics thing, which you can believe is halfway between brain-meltingly dull and blush-inducingly ridiculous, and apparently over 24 hours of it belong on a train going to St. Louis from San Marcos, a small town south of Austin, and it is completely beyond me why we didn't just fly an extra two hours. Dad has been on the phone or his computer the entire time in his sleeper car, which I don't get to share for state secret purposes, and so it's just been me, my phone, my secret talk-to-you-and-your-friends phone, and my memories, all in the observation car.

The world passes us by at a jogging pace and all I can think about are the times I've spent by your side, small and fleeting as they've been, and how I'd love to be next to you right now, talking, playing (even if it means losing), watching you use magic (if you would like to).

When I close my eye sand try to nap I hear the thrum of the train and the chatter of the people in the plastic swivel chairs looking out over the flat Texas landscape, half rolling plains to the horizon, half forest. I try to remember the night the Cupid Bee made its rampage.

I'm not gonna lie, that little bastard was... intoxicating. But you're more than the high. Maybe, if I'm going to be honest, I was a little bit about the high when I asked you out that first time. But you don't need magic to be magnificent.

This train certainly does, though.

 _August 18:_ Appleton is good for something after all. Ostensibly, we're on a trip to Glastonbury to marvel at the religious sites and history. You just happened to be there when we did the touring. Not our fault the leyline runs through the Tor, is it?

While Louis and Amanda had a rematch on the rooftops and Akko and Diana made sure they didn't hurt each other all that badly, you and I drank tea and rode a horse-drawn carriage. It's hot around here, but the ice spirits you awoke from our drinks kept it autumn-cool. If I had any one spell, it would be that one. My God, Texas made me appreciate air conditioning.

You laughed and awed at my stories. You told me your own: Croix's detox, Annabel's hard drive getting kidnapped (your exact word: kidnapped), Fafnir winning a bit and--okay, I don't need that kind of mental image about Finneran. But I am recording who it was that lost the bet, for posterity of course.

We stayed the night. One of the hotels extended you and the "New Nine" infinite credit for saving the world and getting them a nice tourism bump, but I insisted on tipping. It didn't feel right riding them for their hospitality, and I've got money to share with people who've earned it. You know?

We played Tsar Realms. We ate. And we fell asleep together.

In the same bed. You asked. I said yes. And I woke with you nested against me, snoring softly, your head under my chin, the smell of your hair on the pillow. You were so warm, so tranquil. I lay there waiting for you to wake up, and if the train was waiting-as-torture, this was waiting-as-treat. I have not been more comfortable in my life.

Andrew caught me up on what the rest of us did in Glastonbury. No problems. None at all.

 _September 1:_ I was in Cambridge with Andrew when something burned its way out of St. Andrew's Church. Me and him were huddled in a shelter for hours on end. News was sparse; whatever it was it disrupted communications the entire time it was alive. The power went out an hour into the emergency; we spent a lot of time in the dark, waiting for news of the world making it or not. You were there, Lotte, you and your whole crew, and you helped take it down.

It was Akko who opened the doors of our shelter and announced that the world was safe again.

It took me hours to find you. I wasn't even looking for you when I did--I was handing out water to people whose houses had been destroyed. You were handing out food. It was only logical that we pair off. You barely talked. You just handed out boxes of food and MREs and took care not to look anybody in the eye. I've never seen you that quiet before, that withdrawn.

It was a while before we were relieved and fresher volunteers took our place. I think I realized you were out of magic power when we had to prepare our own MREs instead of calling on spirits to do the heavy lifting. You were silent all throughout. You called the all-day breakfast; I had the steak and dumplings; we split the soup.

You were silent the entire time.

We found a quiet place, a little out of the way, and we spent some time together. You didn't talk. I didn't talk. I think I asked if you wanted me to talk, and you didn't say yes, so I didn't. I put my arm around you and you leaned into me. There was blood in your hair, or I think it was blood. It was black, opalescent.

I cleaned your hair with my handkerchief. I threw it away when it started to smolder. You smiled, a little bit, and you leaned against me, and I think you felt better. You fell asleep. You were so small. You felt so frail. I had to remind myself you had fought something that stepped through buildings en route to engage another witch in melee, something that made noises that reverberated through the ground, noises that shouldn't have traveled that way--high-pitched ringing, noises like baby cries on synthesizer.

I carried you out to the tents where people were sleeping. They were nearly vacant; the people who were sleeping stirred in their sleep, sweating, whimpering.

Somebody took a picture of me carrying you. It made the papers, it made the internet. And my father saw.

 _September 6:_ Happy birthday, Lotte.

Andrew's been putting in a good word for you. So has his dad. My dad's blowup at me was a little too public, and so the rumors began. I hear there's people shipping us on the internet. Letter campaigns. Somebody's actually started a Gofundme to get us tickets to... somewhere? Away from the UK, away from my dad, so we can be together.

I don't know what to make of it.

I wish I could be there. I'll make your next birthday. [I promise.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617f1ipS6Wc)

I'll always choose trouble with my dad over a life without you.


	10. I Eat Cannibals

_Requested by Crispy_

It began innocently enough one rainy Saturday morning when Akko mentioned Constanze's hobby to Diana.

"Cons has some toys, maybe she'll let us play with them," Akko said. "You ever play Masters of the Universe, Diana? 'Cause I didn't but they're cool and muscly."  
Diana looked up from her breakfast tea. "Masters of... they made toys for the movie?"

Whereupon it was revealed that Diana had grown up with the Dr. Dolph Lundgren/Frank Langella masterpiece as her favorite movie, and that the poor sheltered dope knew nothing of its vast, needlessly complex history. One thing led to another.

"Tell me of the loneliness of good, Akko-Man," Diana said, holding the toy Havok Staff against her chest. "Is it equal to the loneliness of evil?"

"Ha, probably!" Akko said, slapping her New Adventures power sword against a generic plastic shield. The two resumed sparring in the toy weapon arena Constanze had set up in her toy roo--collection chamber. Amanda and Lotte got weirdly into it. It was Lotte who put up the first bet, and Amanda who saw her bet, and really, it was getting too spicy for Jasminka's blood, so she snuck away and explored the rest of Constanze's collection. She barely got to see the place; she was always afraid she'd knock something over and cause a ruckus.

She found Sucy listlessly playing with some of the playsets. "Hey," she said, waving a Teela figure clenched in the jaws of a rubbery snake hand puppet attached to the Fright Zone. "How's the fight?"

"It goes!" Jasminka said. "Uh oh, looks like the redhead's gotten into some trouble!"

"You better believe it," Sucy said, not super enthused. "This is cute and all, but I can't help but feel like something's missing... eh." She dropped the Teela and looked around. "This looks pretty neat," she said, tilting the skull on a little wall piece with attached divot and rising claw thing. "And then there's... this." She pet the head of an angry-eyed, generic-looking sauropod toy that was nearly the length of the table and took up about half its surface. She had just begun to scratch under its chin when Constanze popped up from under her, scaring the hell out of her.

"Hello!" Jasminka said.

"Zharlloigor, when'd you get so quiet--nevermind."

Cons beamed. She held up a sign. "REPLICA GIGANTISAUR--MADE BY HAND--BY ME--VERY EXPENSIVE--NEVER RELEASED!" She crawled onto the table and showed off its many features. It could rear up on its hind legs; its belly popped open to reveal a gun turret chair for some reason; its mouth gaped open and closed; and in a moment that changed Jasminka and Sucy's life forever, Cons reached for Teela, popped her in the toy's open mouth, and reared back its neck. The figure clattered down its long neck and into its hollow body. After a moment, Cons popped open a door in the side to retrieve her.

Constanze flipped the hatches closed and set the toy back on its feet. She hopped off the table, dusting her hands and still looking quite pleased with herself.  
Sucy and Jazzy looked at the dinosaur with sudden vigor. "Say," Sucy said, "is it cool if we play with the expensive replica?"

Cons nodded and gave them a thumbs up. She flicked a comment card into her hand: "Enjoy the fruits of my labors."

"Ow, I tripped!" Akko said after tripping into a display.

Constanze took a deep breath and charged Akko's latest disaster.

Sucy looked at the Gigantisaur, and then at Jasminka. It was notoriously difficult to tell what Jasminka was looking at within her cone of vision, but one may safely presume she was looking at the toy and then at Sucy.

"I'm gonna tell you now, Pinkie," Sucy said, "I'm going to enjoy this in a way best described as 'unwholesome.'"

"Me too," Jasminka said, smiling.

* * *

"Oh, no!" Jasminka said; she turned Teela's wiggling run into a faceplant. "I have tripped over a rock! Surely I am doomed!"

"You better believe it," Sucy said, moving Gigantisaur's neck with Evil-Lyn seated on its head, roughly. "You are in my power and nothing in the universe will save you from this, you ginger slut." She leaned the toy down, its hindquarters pivoting into the air because let's be honest it wasn't the most maneuverable several pounds of plastic. With a little help from Mr. Imagination the beast scooped Teela up in its mouth, leaned back, and knocked her into its throat with a clatter of plastic on plastic. "Yeah, you big, hungry bastard, gulp that bitch down..."

"Oh noooo I am doomed," Jasminka said, lips pressed against the dinosaur's side to try and make it sound like the voice was coming from inside. "If only my friend the lady with the wing coat was here!"

Sucy set the Sorceress down on the table before the monster. "I am here, Majestic Imperator Jazz-Su. I cannot hope to stop your ultimate monster, so I am here to sacrifice myself to it that it not feast upon other helpless maidens as it has already done repeatedly. Mighty beast, devour me!"

"As you wish, hon~" Jasminka said, taking the helm of Gigantisaur. "Om nom, gulp gulp!" She tilted the monster's head back. "Poor pretty wing lady, what a tasty treat you were for my beast."

"Ahhhh the ecstasy of its throat and stomach are beyond compare," Sucy breathed. A bruise-colored blush was spreading across her face. "To be devoured by the ultimate monster... orgasmic."

"Oh, Sucy, you're so explicit," Jasminka said, fanning herself.

"In fact..." Sucy plucked Evil-Lyn from her awkward perch on Gigantisaur's head. "Your words have changed me, Grand Warlock! I consign myself to the gullet of my own steed! To oblivion." She crammed the toy into the dinosaur's maw and completed the transaction. "Sweet... sweet oblivion."

Evil-Lyn came to a stop somewhere in the chest region, piled on top of two other figures piled on the folded-up gun turret. Jasminka jiggled the figure around a bit.

"So... wanna do it again?" Sucy said. "Switch up who's who, maybe?"

"Yes, please," Jasminka, retrieving the toys from inside.

They only had three female characters to work with, so they only replayed the scenario fifteen times.

* * *

Eventually, Akko and Constanze and Diana wore themselves out reenacting scenes and introducing Diana to the cartoons, and the group parted ways.

"See you!" Akko said.

Diana was utterly lost in a YouTube compilation of end-of-episode moral tags, giggling like an idiot at tone-deaf protips for life aimed at small children.

"Don't be a stranger, Jazz, you hear?" Sucy said.

"You neither, Suce!" Jasminka said, waving her off as their visitors rode the elevator back up to the top floor. "You know," she said, "we should invite them over more often. We have so much to share. And we had so much fun in your toy room! I'm glad you lightened up about letting us play in there. It's so neat getting to share your childhood with you. It makes me feel tiny and happy and warm like a spring Saturday morning."

Constanze finished writing on her slate and held it up: "I know why you and Sucy played with Gigi."

"Well, we do love the craftsmanship you--"

Cons shook her head, erased what she wrote, and jotted down four large letters and held the sign directly in Jasminka's face.

"That's... a strong word to use."

Cons raised an eyebrow: am I wrong?

"You... don't know everything about me... or her... so for all you know..."

The little German witch opened her mouth and pronounced the word.

"Yes, you're right," Jazzy said, dabbing at sweat beading on her forehead. "Please don't think less of me for it."

Cons shrugged and wrote down something. A lot of somethings. She showed it to Jasminka, who read the list and blushed three words in.

"Oh... goodness."

Constanze produced a comment card: "Please remember I am German."

* * *

The next time Sucy and Jasminka met was at lunch the next day. Sucy finished her mashed potatoes with a side of scalloped potatoes and prepared to take the most obnoxious nap she could manage--perhaps on top of the drink dispenser, where they'd have to use a broom or a spell to jostle her awake once lunch was over. That'd piss some people off. Now all she had to do was time her jump--

Jasminka abruptly plopped down next to her. "Hello, Sucy!" she said.

"Hey, Jazz," Sucy said, smiling. "Eat as well as you possibly could?"

"I did," Jasminka said. She held out a bag of something. "Would you like to join me?"

"Eh, sure." Sucy reached into the bag and felt something unusual. She pulled out a tiny, bite-sized soft cake cast in the shape of a buxom female figure. "...huh. Sponge cake. Not my first choice... no icing?"

"They're a special treat," Jasminka said. She popped one on her tongue, which she held out for a long moment before slipping it back into her mouth and swallowing the soft, yielding cake whole. "Mm... aaah. Just a little bit of the ultimate taboo."

Sucy followed suit.

"Well, I'm unstoppably horny now," Sucy said. ["Wanna bang in a broom closet?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTvdjlJUO8A)

"Yes, m'am!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Kewelwarez for titling the story at last!


	11. I Get A Kick (Out Of You)

_Requested by Stony_

It was a magic kind of hour; not the literal point-your-wand-and-do-the-thing magic, the spiritual kind, when the dying sun filtered through Nelson's shuttered window and cast orange bars of light across her prone body half-lying, half-seated in a beanbag chair. She was making headway through a cheap bottle of whiskey, she had an open bag of Walker's Salt and Vinegar to kill, and she didn't have to be sober for two whole days. This was the kind of hour for miracles.

There was a knock at her door.

"It's not locked," Nelson said.

The door jostled in the frame. "It is, actually!" Finneran said.

"Shit," Nelson said. "Well, guess you're trapped. Got some magic you can use on that?"

"I'm on the outside, Adrian," Finneran said.

"Oh, right," Nelson said. "Uh... one sec..."

After a couple minutes of searching, Nelson found the key hiding on the keyhooks and swung her door wide for her lil' Annie to come through. "Hey, babe," she said, smiling at her, pressing her tongue against the gap where her missing tooth should be.

Finneran was out of her uniform, a rare sight; she wore a plain forest-green dress with a silver necklace, the three-moon symbol of Mother Mormo hanging from it. Finneran examined Nelson: out of her uniform, dressed in a white t-shirt and panties. "You're going for the casual look tonight, then?"

"Hell yeah. Gonna chill out, gonna crack open some more brews, gonna--" Memory caught up. "Oh shit, it's the last Friday of the month. Shit!" She scrambled for her discarded clothes. "Just--a--sec--and--"

Finneran leaned against the threshold, and--yes, smiling, if faintly. "Partying a little too hard before we have the all-clear. Classic Nelson."

"Yeah, yeah," Nelson said, struggling to climb into a pair of dungarees, pausing only to button up her green gingham shirt. It matched Anne's dress, but only by sheer luck. "What's the game? Poker? Pai Gow--don't tell me it's Pai Gow."

"Blackjack," Anne said.

"Oh? Hot damn, that's our game!"

Finneran's smile dared widen. "You won't believe who got the short straw this time."

* * *

The gambling corner was hidden in one of the restrooms in the teachers' building. It was nearly undetectable; its only tells were that it was perpetually spotless, as if it were never used as a bathroom, and that there was a single toilet two stories tall and occupying the majority of the floor space. It split open to reveal a hidden felt table that, with a quick spell, would configure whatever accoutrements they needed for indoor games. Tonight it was a wide half-circle emblazoned with the interlocking-bells symbol of Daoloth the Revelator.

Back when she was going by Ursula, Chariot had a knack for putting on what some of the students called the "uncomfortable and slightly nervous doggo" expression; eyes obscured by the glint of light off her glasses, that wide, wobbly, open-mouthed smile that conveyed no mirth or confidence, and eyebrows somewhere between worried and surprised. She had such an expression as she stepped into the light as the dealer. The stark light glinted off the ice-cream-white Playboy bunny costume the other teachers selected for her. "G-good evening, witches of Luna Nova," she said. "Are you ready to..." She giggled. "Really, I have to say the..."

"You've worn less in front of more people," Finneran said, finishing stacking her chips.

"Yeah, but that was just, like, in front of a bunch of kids," Nelson said, pouring herself some seltzer water to get her head on straight. "They ain't gonna get naked if they get excited. Eh, eh?"  
Polyphema, the teacher who insisted on wearing a sight-obscuring cyclops-eye face mask, cleared her throat. "Just think of it like one of those performances, Ms. du Nord. It should help. And the game will be nice and smooth."

"Aw, what's the fun in that?!" Lukic said. "If it goes smooth nobody's gonna put up teeth!"

"What's that, Luke?" Nelson said, flipping a ten-pound chip into the air. "Did I hear you're willin' to part with one of those gold teeth you got?"

"Don't be so eager, Mandela," Lukic said, flashing a mouth full of gold incisors and molars in no particular order or pattern. "I like what I got goin' and I'm gonna keep it."

"You're my prey tonight, Lucky Luke," Nelson said, giving her the evil eye. From a witch, that was no small gesture.

Lukic responded by making the Elder Sign at her, an even sterner warning.

Finneran was entirely unsure how to feel about this development, but she was absolutely certain it was going to be interesting.

* * *

And interesting it was; Chariot delt a fast, efficient game, and once she'd gotten over her burst of stage fright, she got into the spirit of the thing a little more with each hand.

Nelson was a lot of things: drunk, American...

...uh...

Nelson was two things, but she was also a devil at blackjack, and as the other teachers made bad calls and overextended themselves, or played too cautiously and saw their betters rush ahead, or bet too much on a sure thing that turned out less sure than they anticipated. Not before long it was down to four players.

Nelson sat pretty behind a mound of cash. Badcock to her right was a bad hand or two away from catching up; Finneran to her left wasn't broke, but she was poorer than when she started, and barely hanging in.

"Say," Badcock said while Chariot shuffled the decks back into the dealer's shoe.

"Loser says what?" Nelson said, swiftly and under her breath.

Badcock didn't bite. "How about we make this hand the climax?"

"If you're sayin' what I think you are--"

"I'm not," Badcock said, waving her down. "I'm saying, we go all in. And by all-in... you've been going steady with Finny, haven't you?"

"Sam?" Finneran said. "What are you getting at?"

"As it happens, yeah," Nelson said, turning to face Baddy.

"How about this. I'll put up this..." She reached into her personal otherspace and pulled out a full bottle of Glengoolie Blue, setting it in the betting box with a solid thump. "...and you put on this table right here... a night with Annie. That sound good to you, Annie?"

"...pardon?" Finneran said.

"Yeah--I mean, yeah, whacha mean by that?" Nelson said.

"Come on, we're swingers by nature. You two can't possibly be spending that much time together and not be getting itchy. Why not mix it up a little?" Badcock smirked.

Anne turned it over in her head. It was true, she had been with Nelson for an abnormally long stretch of time. Generally whenever she was exclusive at Luna Nova, it was for a period of a week or two before she traded off with someone else. It was lonesome being a teacher at this school, and menfolk were rare and valuable, so with a combination of older-woman horniness and Luna Novan loneliness came the fact that every teacher had slept with every other teacher, sometimes on the regular.

Two months being Nelson's, and Nelson being hers, was an anomaly. The two spent long nights listening to old music on Nelson's Bluetooth speakers she won in that contest, drinking, making fun of old movies and... being together.

Nelson was strong, full of energy, and she drank like a champion. Those were good traits to have. Anne was less of a drinker than she was a--

"Well?" Badcock said, and Anne snapped back to reality.

"Yeah, babe, you think that's cool or not?" Nelson said. "'Cause if it ain't cool by you I ain't puttin' you up for nothin'. Not even..." She took a deep breath before spitting out, "Not even 86 proof billion-dollar mega-scotch."

"Why... Adrian, that's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," Anne said.

Nelson processed her statement. "Uh... I didn't hear a lot of... whachacallit... irony? Like, did you mean that as seriously as you did?"

"I... maybe? Samantha, what's your take?"

"You sounded pretty sweet about it..." Badcock said, punctuating with a sip from her hip flask.

"The time is night," Chariot said, a sly note in her voice. "Will you be performing a strictly conventional bet? Shall the dance go on longer?"

Finneran shoved her pile into the betting box. "Going all in. And yes, Nelson will be betting a night with me."

"Uh... sure! What she said!" Nelson said, shoving her pile in likewise. She scooped up a couple of Lukic's bet teeth that escaped from the rest of her pile and threw it on top.

"If they're game," Badcock said, adding hers to the pile, "then I am."

Chariot dealt the cards.

* * *

Anne poured a finger of her Glengoolie Blue into a rectangular tumbler, added a drop of water, and conjured a perfect sphere of ice to rest in the glass. She took a loving sniff of the glass, the rich aroma hitting her nose and filling her with anticipatory energy, and then and only then took a sip.

[Perfection.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7Tdi3sMOjM)

She held her glass out to Adrian, who sat next to her on the blackjack table, pressing a corner against her lips, and tilted it back, just so, letting Adrian sweat out the long seconds before the thick, fine scotch trickled into her mouth.

"Damn, man," Nelson said.

"How's it taste?" Finneran said.

"Like you got blackjack."

"It most certainly does." She took a second sip.

"Can I go now?" Badcock said, sniffling through the back end of her crying jag at having lost as hard as it was possible to lose.

"Mmm..." Finneran said, looking at her slumped on the table through the glass-clear ball of ice resting in her tumbler. "Not 'til the glass is done."

"That goes for me too, yeah?" Chariot said from behind.

"Eh, you can go," Finneran said, waving her off.

"Try to pick the short straw again next month, 'kay?" Nelson said.

"Who knows," Chariot said, winking audibly. "I'm famously unlucky."

"Unlike some of us here," Anne said, nuzzling against Nelson's nape.

"Amen t'that," Nelson said, resting her head on Anne's fluffy auburn hair. "Ain't no one in Luna Nova luckier than I am tonight."

"You're damn right," Anne said. She lifted her head--and poured a little trickle of Glengoolie onto Nelson's neck.

"--sweet _frickin_ '--" Nelson said, a full-body shiver overtaking her.

Anne licked the dripping scotch from Nelson's firm skin.

"-- _Mama Mormo_ , that feels good," Nelson sighed.

"You can go now," Finneran said, kissing Nelson's neck.

"Oh, when it gets interesting, that's when--" Badcock said.

Nelson and Finneran both aimed their wands at her.

"Fine, leaving."


	12. Perfect Imperfection

_Requested by Flashbang Yanson_

Sucy was creeping down the hall towards the dorm, minding her own business after that broom-dance debacle, when she heard muffled yelling from the direction of--yes, from her room, where she slept and made poison and drank. This better not be annoying, she thought, and the screaming trailed off. She held her ground, and a few moments later Lotte shoved Akko through the door and slammed it shut.

Come to think of it, you might know this part. Let's nudge ahead, then, just a little: Sucy peering through the door at Lotte slumped over onto the desk, faintly trembling.

She glimpsed behind her, seeing Akko peel herself off the ground. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna give her some space," Akko said.

"You best," Sucy said. "I didn't think she had the ability to do violence. Like, at all."

"Maybe you should too, Sucy."

"Eh. I'm in the mood to put my life in the hands of Zharlloigor." She slid through the door and closed it behind her.

She perked her ears and waited for Lotte to make a noise. In time, she did: a long, tremulous wail, muffled by her arms. Oh, dammit, this was going to be A Thing, wasn't it. She inched towards Lotte, thinking about what she could say. Or if she could just rig up a quick antidepressant... or stimulant... and splash it onto her and bypass this whole mess in an instant.

Yeah, that's the tick...

Lotte raised her head and looked over her shoulder. Her glasses were dewy with tears, her face smudged red, her nose running freely. What a friggin' mess.

...yeah, nevermind. Sucy mimicked a smile. "Hey, Lolo," she said, softly. "Something fucked up happened, didn't it?"

Lotte turned herself around in her chair. She sniffled, hiccupped. "A... Akko..."

"What did she do?"

Lotte picked something off the table and held it out. It looked like a scroll, only... yep, it had been torn in half, ribbons of vellum dangling from the two handles.

"Huh. What a jackass."

"It's... it's m... it's..." Lotte set the scroll back on the desk, then lunged free of the table and directly at Sucy. She didn't have time to scream or flinch or hex her before Lotte trapped her in a fearsome grapple. So this was how she went: Lotte's iron Finnlimbs constricting the life out of her, chest-to-chest, arms locked around Sucy's back. Maybe if she wriggled--

Lotte pressed her crying face against Sucy's neck. She blurted out a long stream of syllables, half of them choked, the rest flooding out like her tears. She wasn't trying to... hurt... her...

Oh. Ohh. This is a hug.

It wouldn't occur to Sucy later that having one's first hug when one was well over halfway through their teens was an exceptionally rare experience.

"Easy, there," Sucy said. "If you're trying to tell me something I can't, uh... hear it so well."

Lotte struggled to steady her breathing. "Akko... she... she took... the scroll... and I... I tried to take it back... and... it r-r- _r-ipped... anteeksi, Ithaqua, olen idiootti_..." She cried anew, sobbing into Sucy's shoulder. "I should... I should just... rot in the ground like the i- _i-idiot_ I am."

Okay, Sucy, you have...

No, you do _not_ have this, [even a little bit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBi2zovyeFs).

"You're not an idiot." Sucy struggled to move her arm against Lotte's grip, and managed to touch her hair. She wrapped a lock of it around her finger and tugged gently. "You're not an idiot.

And Akko didn't mean it. Like, if you're concerned about that. It's a miracle that girl can walk on her own but she's not, like, evil on purpose."

"I... I sh-should've known..."

"Shh." She pat Lotte's back with her other hand. "Akko's like a flock of geese, or a dog. She just does things arbitrarily."

"It's too much. It's all too much..."

A brainwave. Sucy led Lotte to her non-bunk bed and set her down on it. She lay next to her, at which point Lotte finally let go and she was freed from her inescapable clutches. Sweet Shugoran, free at last. "All this parade shit, right?" Sucy said.

Lotte nodded.

"Yeah, it's... there's a lot going on. And you have to somehow make it all fit together, which is, uh..."

"She... she made me..."

Sucy waited for any number of awful words to follow that.

"She made me r-r-rip the scroll."

Oh sweet Shugoran it was just that.

"No, no. Accident. Definitely. And, uh... repair magic exists, you know?"

"I don't know if..."

"Shhh. It'll work." She kissed Lotte's forehead--

\--she did what?!

Her heart thumped in her chest like a scared rabbit's foot. "Oh. Uh. Sorry about that," she said. "I don't know what came over me."

Lotte sniffled. "No. It's fine."

"Phew," Sucy said, and meant it. "Last thing I needed to do was freak you out over some other stupid thing."

"It's not stupid," Lotte said, pushing her glasses up onto her forehead as she looked up at Sucy from her vantage point positioned just below her, relatively, on the bed. "It... it helps." Her eyes were very, very blue. It was a shade Sucy rarely saw back home, or anywhere, really. And for reasons she never needed to share with anybody, she was very particular about eyes.

"Will you feel better faster if I kiss you again?" Sucy said.

Lotte nodded.

There you have it. This'll get nipped in the bud much faster. She plucked Lotte's glasses off, set them aside, and--well, this side-by-side business was no good. For the best she would have to... well... let's think about this reasonably.

She rolled Lotte onto her back, settling on top of her, Sucy's long dark hair draped over her; slowly this time, with care, she pressed her lips against Lotte's forehead. (She tasted Lotte's skin, faintly salty with sweat, and soft.) "It's okay," Sucy said. "It's going to be okay. Everything is okay."

Lotte didn't have to try to steady her breathing now. She looked up at Sucy and Sucy found herself wondering what she saw. How good were her eyes? Did she see a smear of impressionist colors, or did she see Sucy in stark relief against a ceiling of blurry shadows?

"Thank you," Lotte said.

"You're welcome," Sucy said.

Lotte pushed herself up and she kissed Sucy's chin. Her lips were soft, too.

"...whwwhhh..." Sucy said. " _Ano_?"

"Can you hold my hand when we go shopping?" Lotte said.

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

Sucy rolled off of her, onto her feet, and towards the closet where her extra uniforms were, and tried to pin a name on that feeling she was feeling pumping through her. Warm. Elated. Aware. Like a burst of anxiety but without the feeling of doom. Like a caffeine high without the aimless need to explode into action. Like methamphetamines but all her thoughts were fixated not on how good meth felt but how much she wanted to hold Lotte's hand.

She had tried a number of drugs at volumes deadly to humans because she barely felt them at human-tolerable doses. This was a drug she barely needed to taste before it made her dizzy.

Oxytocin. That's what you're feeling.

Love.

You're in love, Sucy.

"Zharlloigor forgive me," she said, and wiped her brow with her sleeve.


	13. You're the Sunflower

_Requested by All Sight._

"Is that a robot?" Lotte said, squinting at something over Akko's shoulder. Akko followed her line of sight and saw wind-up robot trundling across the lunch room floor towards their table. A witch walked around the little toy as it crept closer to the Crimson Corsairs.

"Huh," Akko said, "that's a lil' wind-up robot! And it's comin' over here!"

"Why, yes, how observant," Sucy said. "You should go pick it up. See what it's up to. Decipher its wisdom."

Akko picked up her food tray and walked over to the robot, holding out her food precariously in one hand and retrieving the toy with the other. It was a classic 50s-style bubble-headed robot with a little Valentine heart in its little pincers.

She turned it around 'til she saw a name written on the other side of the heart: CONS..

"Aw, how cute!" Akko said. "This lil' sucker's going on my shelf. Cons is such a nice little German lady." She headed back to the table, not noticing Sucy completing a leap back into her seat and paying no mind that she was breathing heavily. "Remind me to write a note thanking her!"

"Yeah," Sucy said, gasping for breath and dabbing at sweat on her forehead. "Yeah, sure. Dig in to the macaroni and cheese, it's extra... uh... it's... it's here."

Constanze peeked from behind a column, watching to see Akko discover her love letter and reciprocate her romantic advances. She looked at the love letter, smiled, and talked things over with her friends before eating the mac and cheese Sucy had poisoned. Nothing.

Dammit. Cons snapped her fingers for emphasis; such was her anger. The next one has to be less subtle.

She dug out her phone and texted Amanda as Sucy's poison kicked in, heavily magnetizing Akko, such that every unattended eating utensil and her own food tray flew into her.

"need help to be less subtle. tips?"

"DUDE" Amanda texted back, "MAKE A STRIPPER ROBOT"

"no."

"OKAY HOW ABOUT" " _Amanda is typing_..."

* * *

Late that night, Akko was lost in the depths of that monster Sleep, fidgeting and mumbling. "No... not them toads... not all them toads..."

She didn't notice the first few pebbles pinging off of the team's window. She didn't even notice the brick smashing through it. It took Sucy rolling her out of bed to shock her out of the toad vortex.

"Akko," Sucy said, "this brick has a note tied to it." She held the brick over Akko's face as her brain fumbled into the waking world. "The note says 'Akko, please look out the door.' I was having a wonderful dream and this brick stole me from it. You better solve the brick problem or I'm going to solve _the Akko problem_."

"Wha?" Akko said.

Sucy picked Akko up, used her to mop books, broken glass, and the Hand of Glory from the table, and propped her half out of the window. She slithered back into bed and let Akko handle the rest.

Akko blinked, her eyes feeling fogged up from the muggy evening. "Yo?" she said.

On the ground below, a 3:1 scale Constanze robot held a boom box over her frowny-faced head. At the sound of Akko's voice it began to play "Sunflower" and gently bop along to the beat.

Akko bopped her head too. "Man, I love this song!" she said. "Hey, thanks for coming with me for some of the times I saw the movie, by the way! I hate going to the movies alone."

Behind the robot, Constanze herself crossed her fingers extra hard and let the song play out.

"Thanks for the jam, Cons!" Akko said. "Well, I guess I'll get back to bed. See you tomo--"

Cons freaked out; Consbot waved her arms frantically, ripping the boom box in half in the process.

"Wait, you have something else? Like you need some radio repairs?" Akko said. "Hang on, I've been practicing my repair magic, lemme help you out!" She wriggled out of the window and promptly fell out. Constanze, and Consbot, charged to save her, arriving just in time for Akko to crash through some bushes. The robot dug around and pulled Akko from the spiky depths of the bush abyss.

"Hi!" Akko said, only a little pained. "I think I swallowed a branch."

* * *

The knocking continued.

"The pool's closed, kids!" Nurse Horowitz said, putting her back into stirring her concoction.

Consbot smashed through the door to the nurse's office. "Hi!" Akko said from the safety of Consbot's arms. "I took a bad tumble, can I get a healing potion?"

"I'm off the clock, so, legally speaking, no," Horowitz said, waving her stirring paddle at the two (three if you count Consbot as a robot in and of herself). Consbot responded by picking her up by the nape of her uniform and setting her aside. "Hey, come on!"

Constanze's mechanical avatar held Akko over the cauldron full of blue liquid and ice cubes; Constanze herself climbed onto its shoulders for a better vantage point. She held her breath, as did Akko, and with gentle movements of her controller lowered her into the cauldron. She swished the wounded witch around and hoisted her out, syrupy liquid pouring in rivulets from the robot's joints.

Akko sputtered. "Wow, that burns a lot. Like, wow, a lot." She licked her lips. "Is it supposed to taste like pineapple and curacao?

"That wasn't a healing potion," Nurse Horowitz said, "I was trying to mix a nice Blue Hawaiian and you had to interrupt me."

"Oh," Akko said. "That'd explain a lot. ... Cons, do you have something to wipe my eyes? I got the feeling it's gonna hurt when I open my eyes."

Constanze shot Nurse Horowitz a glare.

"What's that I'm gettin' from you?" the nurse said. "Some kind of... threat? Like you're threatening me?"

The tiny German pointed at her own eyes, then at Nurse Horowitz, and then at her own eyes again, and at last at Horowitz. The implication, perhaps, was that Constanze had her eyes on her.

"...alright, this one's on the house," Horowitz said, pulling a healing potion from her belt. "But don't try and throw eyes at me again, bluey." She threw the potion at Akko's head; the glass exploded against her dome, but the rain of healing liquid healed the glass injuries along with the branch and fall injuries. "Now get out so I can strain my cocktail of student pollutants in peace."

Constanze dug around in her pockets and handed Akko a handkerchief.

"Thanks, Cons," Akko said, rubbing her eyes. "And opening my eyes and..." She blinked. "Hey, no burning! And all my wounds are closed! Thanks, Cons. Come 'ere, you little sucker!"  
Cons climbed down the robot's shoulder and, after pausing for breath, settled into taking a seat in Akko's lap. Akko sat up and pulled Constanze into a hug. "Thanks again," Akko said. "Sorry I caused you so much trouble."

The little German girl squirmed in Akko's grip, unsure how to process the sudden amount of hugging she was experiencing. But you want to be hugged, don't you, Constanze? Weren't you hoping for this? Don't struggle, you idiot--

"Less tight?" Akko said.

Cons nodded.

"A'ight!" Akko said, loosening her grip.

Cons sighed and settled into Akko's arms, resting her head on Akko's shoulder. Her eye fluttered, and later, to her surprise, she fell asleep immediately.

"Oh, huh," Akko said. "It is... what time is it?"

"Half past three," Horowitz said, squeezing her Blue Hawaiian through a strainer to filter out the Akko particles. "And change."

"Huh, it's super late! I should get her back to her place. See you, doc." Akko slid from Consbot's hands onto the ground and crept out of the nurse's office.

"There goes some chick I should recognize," Nurse Horowitz said, toasting the witches with her hurricane glass full of squeezed cocktail. "God luck and good speed." She sipped her drink. Not bad.

The Consbot caught fire.

"You stop that," Horowitz said.

* * *

Constanze woke a few hours later. It was just before dawn, the sky outside a lighter shade of black, and she was sharing her bed with Atsuko Kag--

[oh god she was sharing her bed with Akko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApXoWvfEYVU). Akko was fully dressed, sleeping on top of her covers instead of beneath like Cons was, and she snoring and drooling softly, but still!

Cons froze, waiting. Akko wasn't waking up. Amanda and Jazzy were snoozing away. She was safe. She had time to ponder her reaction and how she would handle this situ--

Akko snorted and blinked awake. "Oh, hey," she said, softly. "Morn', Cons. Sorry, I had this weird dream about..." She wiped her mouth. "What was it..."

Constanze whimpered.

"Oh... yeah. Sorry about the surprise, I kinda... fell asleep... after... tucking... you in." Akko glanced aside. "I kinda got used to sleeping with you in the room back when we were working on your Wild Hunt robo-boat. I, uh, haha, this is gonna sound weird, but sometimes if I can't get to sleep, and that's a lot, actually, I'm like full of energy, sometimes I close my eyes and pretend I'm in your lair, you're nearby workin' on somethin' crazy, and I'm here if you need me for anything. That gets me, like, cozy. Super cozy. It's kinda nuts."

Constanze took a deep breath, warmed up her vocal chords, and forced out a complete sentence: "You smell... like coconut."

"I do? Oh, I do."

"I like ih..." She coughed. Words were hard.

"Are you okay?" Akko said, voice tinged with worry.

Cons contemplated her next action. With smoe effort, she mouthed the words, "I am, when I'm with you."

Akko blushed. "...aw..." She gave Constanze a hug, not too tight. "I'm okay when I'm with you, too. ... Let's be with each other tonight. I mean... however much more tonight we have."

Constanze nodded, and reciprocated the hug. With some urging, they both hugged a little tighter, and so the small hours of the morning were warm and soft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, baby. Let me tell you, it has been CUH-RA-ZY.
> 
> Still taking requests! ... Hopefully they'll take less time now!


	14. As the World Falls Down

Diana and Constanze's first date had been at the Last Wednesday Society, enjoying tea and small cakes and taking in the tranquility. Akko noticed after the proprietor refreshed the pot that it was in fact so tranquil that neither Cons nor Diana had made much eye contact. Constanze was fidgeting, making small, frustrated noises; Diana was scratching her wrist in that way that Akko knew was a worrying sign.

In stealthy silence, Akko gently nudged Constanze's new tablet computer onto the table. (One of the teachers had thrown theirs out of the window in fury and Constanze caught it in her mouth as she walked under the rain of glass and consumer electronics.) Diana noticed it first; in particular she noticed the stylus attached to the side. She found a writing app, and wrote on the page: "This tablet writes beautifully."

Cons nodded, and held out her hand. Diana handed her the tablet; she erased the message and wrote one of her own, the technical specifications of the tablet, concluding, "That is why it writes well."

Diana read the missive and smiled, and took a moment to draw a simple sketch of a monk--tonsured and in robes--writing an elaborately calligrafied "THE" on a tablet. Cons smirked and doodled a robot arm with a quill and ink pen, and the conversation kept going from there.

Jackpot.

Constanze spent the next week with her spirits and head held high, and Diana greeting her every time they passed each other in the halls and on the way to their seats in class. A few days ago, they'd even tried to have lunch together, until Constanze blushed like a bonfire and excused herself. It seemed high time for another date, Akko decided, and subtly proposed a course of action.

* * *

 

"Good morning, Luna Nova!" Wangari shouted, throwing a fistful of aquarium pamphlets around outside of Finneran's last class on Thursday. "Lovebirds of all types, the super romantic and conveniently-located Blytonbury aquarium is giving all registered students a discount on day passes! HEY YOU!" Wangari flung an entire armful at Diana. "I hear you have a lady-friend who likes things quiet! Maybe she'll dig this, who knows! Anyway, off I go." Wangari skipped off down the hallway.

Diana brushed pamphlets from her hair and gave one a good read. "Hm... hmm." She smiled, folded the pamphlet, and stuck it in a vest pocket. "Perhaps..."

Akko peeked out of her locker as Wangari passed by. "Yo, did Diana get the message?"

"Yes, m'am!" Wangari said. "No problem, 100% guarantee."

"Hella! How subtle were you?"

"Like a knife in the dark, babe," she said, slapping Akko's ass.

* * *

"You guys good?" Akko said. "Ready to have a hella-good time?"

"Yes, m'am," Diana said, giving Akko a mock salute.

Constanze nodded, hugging her tablet close.

"Awesome! If you need me for anything, just gimmie a text and it'll all be cool. I'll be there in a flash. Or, one might even say, in a splash. Eh? Eh?" She gestured to the aquarium's surroundings. "Now you go on ahead, I'm going to walk normally out the door, and you can have that date on your own terms in your own time."

"See you later," Diana said, reaching her hand to Constanze. Cons took Diana's hand and the two witches turned to the Blytonbury Aquarium's entrance, past the lobby's gigantic tank hosting dozens of species of fish and assorted... you know... water things. As the two paused at the donation counter, Akko made her move.

"Hey what's that!" she said to the guard at the front, pointing to a corner of the aquarium. The guard turned to look, examining the corner closely for signs of entry. He barely heard Akko galloping for the tank and leaping yards into the air to crash-land through the screen on top of it, failing to get out a complete "Metamorphie Fa--" before hitting the water and screaming her lungs out at the sting of salt water on her eyes. Of course, she'd managed to surface and successfully transform into her bright orange fish-person mode by the time he finished conducting his ocular pat-down on the corner, so he was none the wiser that Akko the Accelerated would be right here in the aquarium should things go wrong, absolutely minimizing her response time.

This was the Akko-Plan, which could not go wrong at all. Until then: cozying with the seaweed.

* * *

Diana stood prim and tall next to a touchscreen stylized as a window. Centered in the window was a dark eye in a scarred sea, the eye of a blue whale at 1:1 scale. The gimmick was being able to scroll the 1:1 scale image as one pleased, truly taking in the ludicrous size of a blue whale. Diana found it fascinating, and Constanze had broached the topic of taking a picture.

Constanze stood on a bench, licking her lips as she centered the shot exactly, checking the lighting, the color balance; and only when everything was perfect did she touch the take-a-picture button. She gave Diana the thumbs up, and her date relaxed at last, though not by a lot.

"You don't do things by half, do you?" she said, smiling.

Constanze shook her head and pulled up the writing app. "Do it right or not at all," she wrote.

Diana nodded. "Yes, of course. I'm impressed you bring that even to a little picture like this."

Constanze's pen hovered over the tablet, and after a moment, she clicked the pen to the side and simply nodded. Don't blush, she thought. You're German. You're better than that.

Diana took a seat. "Might I see the picture?" she said.

Constanze sat next to her and pulled it up.

"Ah!" Diana said. "This looks amazing. If... if it's not too much to ask, do you have other photos we could look at?"

Constanze nodded and swiped left, only to remember her last picture was of the most embarrassing thing she could possibly have on her film roll.

"Ooh," Diana said, and she had to have been feigning interest. "What are these? Miniature figures?"

Cons nodded. She was blushing. Dammit.

"They're very colorful... did you make them?"

She shook her head. She could lie non-verbally, right?

"Even that one?" Diana said, not quite tapping Constanze's custom MotU-Classics-scale figure. Her MotU-Classics-scale figure cradled in the arms of an Amazonian blonde dressed in angelic white and gold.

She felt around her teeth with her tongue, wondering if she'd actually installed that cyanide capsule she'd been meaning to put in.

"It's a beautiful figure, very keen likeness," Diana said. "Did you use magic, or science?"

"Science," Constanze managed to say.

"Amazing," Diana said. "I..." She laughed, a polite laugh. A pitying laugh... "I spent so much of my youth relearning the craft of magic... I can't tell you how many lessons about just, just doing things with one's own hands I barely paid attention to. I've forgotten it all. Some days I feel like I have this... this gap in my life." She fell quiet for a long moment. The screen dimmed; she wiggled the image in place with her thumb, relighting it. "Like I've lost something without knowing it. Something else..."

Constanze gestured for the tablet. Diana handed it over; Constanze held her pen over the writing app for a long time, unsure of what to write. Diana watched; Cons waited; and she wondered if it was too late to run back home.

She thought about her emergency contact.

* * *

"...they're just so, you know, they got troubles," Akko said to the nice betta fish who was hearing her out. "Diana had such a sad childhood, and Cons, like, she's this super perfectionist who doesn't like getting out of her comfort zone. I just have this feeling like--like they just need a little help?"

The betta blinked.

"Yeah, it's hard to feel like I'm lettin' 'em... woss'word..." She pat her nubby orange fish-head. "Like they can be their own ladies!"

The betta burped.

"Flourish, yeah! They gots to flourish or I'm just being their dating nanny. Oh hey my cell phone went off."

Her cell phone floated next to her, safe inside a ziplock bag. She fired it up and saw a giant block of text from Cons. She read it over and typed a response.

She partly typed a response before a tentacle wrapped around the bag and whipped her phone away.

"Hey, wait!" Akko said, and then she saw the tentacle's owner. Her big bulging eyes bulged even moreso. "Rocko?! I left you for dead in Montenegro!"

The octopus flared his siphons and flicked his switchblade open.

"Gimmie that phone or you're gonna get your squishy fish ass beat," Akko said, squaring up.

Rocko swore at her, and the battle began.

Hold on, Cons, Akko thought, Akko's gonna help you. Just as soon as I'm done not dying.

* * *

Diana followed Constanze at a good five paces behind--her own paces, not Cons's own shorter pace, of course. She'd texted Akko and was waiting for a response. There was literally no telling what Akko could be up to, so... well, whatever was happening next was going to happen.

The aquarium was practically vacant. It was beautiful, yes, and it was calm and quiet, but it was oppressively so in light of Constanze's glumness. Had she done something wrong? Why was Constanze so apprehensive about the picture she'd taken of her toys?

Well, some might find it immature, Diana thought. Perhaps that's what she's worried about. Should she...

Well, she might as well risk it.

"Those figures were beautifully-made, Constanze," she said. "I think they are quite worthy of photography."

Constanze came to a stop and looked at a shallow corner formed by a column.

"I sleep with a teddy bear, you know," Diana said. "I think toys are wonderful."

The little German woman looked over her shoulder, her mouth screwed up.

"I..." She cleared her throat. "I'm sorry if I've spoken out of turn."

Constanze took out her tablet and, with a heavy heart, wrote out what she was thinking. She held out her tablet facing Diana:

"The She-Ra doll was sort of meant to be you."

Diana blinked.

"The... the blonde, yes? With the..." She gestured to her head, indicating the winged crown the toy wore.

Cons nodded.

Diana laughed, genuinely this time. "Well, then, it seems I need to work out my arms more. I'll see about lifting weights."

Constanze pieced that statement in her head and found they fit together in quite a promising fashion. She hastily scrawled a new sentence: "You don't think I'm weird/a pervert?"

"No, of course not. I--ha, I suppose you haven't seen the Chariot trading card I loved so much as a child." She fanned herself dramatically. "She was so tall and, ah, strongly built... I admit, she was part of why I have such an exercise routine." She flexed her waist. "Outside of the belly-dancing, of course."

She noticed Cons's eyes had gone wide.

"Oh... you didn't know?" Diana said. "About the belly-dancing, that is?"

Constanze shook her head.

"It's tradition in the family. My aunt and cousins do so as a sacrament to Yig. My mother and--the main branch, rather, we do so as a sacrament to the Black Goat. Fertility, lady's health..." She performed a few motions, rolling her stomach and slowly gesturing her arms. "And it is beautiful to see."

Constanze nodded. She held out the tablet. Written on the screen: "ABS = <3"

Diana smiled. "Well. You'll be pleased to know..." Diana tugged the hem of her button-up shirt, revealing her toned, firmly-muscled abdomen. "I don't know about She-Ra, but I like to think I have--"

She rushed to catch Constanze, who briefly lost consciousness at the sight of Diana's abdominal gift.

* * *

The ink cloud engulfed the aquarium; the fish that weren't Rocko or Akko had fled to the other side, and watched in terror at the expanding cloud, wondering who would escape the final battle.  
Knife and bag of cell phone in fin, Akko emerged from the cloud. She spat out a cloudy drop of blood. "Murder Ink in the house," she said.

The fishes clapped politely as well as their anatomies allowed.

Silently, Akko finished her text and hit send.

To her pleasant surprise, she received a text back from Constanze in a few seconds: "nvm all good"

"awesome!!! :3" Akko texted back. "c u l8r!" She cricked her fishy neck. "Okay, do they have fish drinks in here?"

* * *

Constanze set her phone on the bench. Was her hand normally that tremble...y? No? She didn't think so. She took a deep breath and shook out the nervous feeling. Nervous. She didn't get nervous... she got focused. Was she not German?

"You're not nervous, are you?" Diana said, the smile in her voice.

"No!" Constanze said, spinning around.

"Did you find some music?"

Cons nodded.

"Excellent. Put it on, and I'll show you how we start."

Constanze leaned over and hit "play" on the YouTube video. [Delicate synth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3baQ9lj3W7E) opened the song; Cons took here place besides Diana.

"Now... stretch," Diana said. "Get those muscles warmed up. Your movement is in your hips. The seat of power for your legs, the center of your gravity... build its strength, its grace, and you strengthen and make graceful your body entire."

Her date followed her movements closely, precisely, even as she struggled with commanding some of the specific muscle groups.

"Don't be afraid of making mistakes," Diana said. "The first step is always unsure. It is through practice that we become certain. And... very soon... you'll be able to laugh at my own mistakes. What was that we'll be practicing tomorrow...?"

"BASIC," Constanze said.

Diana nodded crisply. "Plenty of laughs to be found there, I'm sure."

Cons nodded back, and the two danced.

* * *

Diana and Constanze walked hand-in-hand out of the aquarium, happy.

Akko waited outside, soaked to the bone and sipping from a brown paper bag. "Hey guys," she said. "How was the... thing?"

"We had a wonderful time," Diana said, pulling Constanze closer. Cons made an approving noise and gave Diana a hug.

Akko's heart leapt into her throat. Hugs! Yes! "I'm glad you managed to sort out the thing! See, all you need is--"

"A little practice," Constanze said, nuzzling her girlfriend's taut abs.

"Holy shit was that..." Akko counted. "Five syllables?! Diana, you're a miracle worker!"

"And you," Diana said, "are a fine matchmaker. And a good friend. Thank you, Akko."

"Anytime, pal," Akko said, saluting. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to brush my teeth, because this shandy is not getting rid of the ink taste that I am tasting for no reason... at all."

* * *

Later, Di and Cons kissed super hard on Cons's secret hideout couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! And only ten years late!


	15. Sunrise

Sucy slithered up to the Viridian Vaniqushers' door, ready to open it and creep in without knocking or asking, when the scent of baked bread hit her nostrils. The effect was like waking up twice, like she'd been trapped in one of those awful normal-life dreams where not even Atlach-Nacha, sweet dream-weaver, could spare you from the horror of mundanity.

Sucy further felt like she'd awoken standing at the end of a mile-long trail of slug slime. Not in that she felt like she had trudged through the last week with despondent slowness--though she had--but like she had spent all the good stuff in her and was now running on empty. It was a curious sensation, and all she could do was pop open the door and try not to cry.

Why did she want to cry...?

* * *

She landed on Cons's couch with a pleasant thump, cradled in the smell of baking bread. Jasminka was brewing hot chocolate on a fold-out table, thank the fuckin' vortex.

"'Ey," Sucy said. "Don't suppose you have any liquor to get that stuff into shape?"

"Not on me," Jasminka said, setting the kettle on its kettle-cozy. "Guess you'll just have to enjoy my tasty three-chocolate-blend hot chocolate all on its tasty lonesome~"

Sucy lurched over to the table and took a seat. "Guess I'll have to," she said. She felt a snuffling at her ankle and looked down to see one of Jazzy's precious remaining possums getting a whiff of her leg.

"How's the week been?" Jazzy said as she poured Sucy a cup of hot chocolate. It was dangerously thick stuff, a few degrees short of syrup, which was how Sucy liked it when she was in the mood for it. Without having to ask Jasminka dropped an enormous square marshmallow into the chocolate.

"Eh," Sucy said, shrugging. "Really, really eh." She picked up the cup and let it warm her hands. "You know how it is."

"M-hm!" Jasminka said. "Just one of those days..." She took a seat opposite Sucy and dipped a marshmallow into her own hot chocolate before taking a bite out of it, like a cop with a donut in a world where coffee didn't exist but sugar sure as hell did.

Sucy was about to agree when she realized she barely remembered the events of the past week. That wasn't common. She was a busy lady with a schedule to keep--who to poison and why, who to spare in order to play them against someone else, et cetera. Oh, right, school stuff... that too. She tried to summon up specific memories and all she got were smears of gray feeling, like ruined photographs.

She took a sip of her chocolate. The marshmallow tickled her nose. It was blandly sweet, little more than pure sugar in a sea of already sugary chocolate, but... like the bread, it had an anchoring quality to it.

"You... bakin' in here?" Sucy said.

"Baking the bread, yes!" Jasminka said, all smiles. She was all smiles damn near all the time. "Not bacon as in the cut of meat. Unless you'd like some! It's still morning~"

"No, I'm cool," Sucy said, nursing her drink.

"I can tell!" Jasminka said. "You're downright hugging that chocolate."

"Am not," Sucy said, before realizing she had the cup pressed against her chest. "I'm... I'm half salamander-man. I'm temperature-sensitive."

"So am I~" Jasminka said, popping a marshmallow into her mouth whole.

"And you're from Russia?" Sucy said. "That sounds like you're begging for trouble." She fished her marshmallow from her hot chocolate and sucked on it, freeing half the hot-liquid-soaked mass from the rest. She dropped the remainder back into her drink. "Mrph. Real tough weakness there, chick."

"You can always bundle up against the cold," Jazzy said. "You can only do so much to stop the hot!" Her smile widened, infinitesimally. "You wanna hug?"

"I... why would I want a hug?" Sucy said, realizing she was blushing.

"'Cause it's so cold you're hugging your hot chocolate. I'm warm, too! And the bread's not done."

"I find this an ominous suggestion. I find this unnecessary. Quite frankly, I'm on the verge of taking my hot chocolate and slithering out of here like a snake because I don't know how to operate the elevator and I don't want to ask you."

Jasminka stood up and walked around the table.

"Noooo..." Sucy said, edging away from her.

Jasminka stood behind her.

"Noooooo..." Sucy said, leaning away.

Jasminka picked her up under her arms, lifted her off the chair, and brought her into a patented Russian hug. (Not that Russians hugged, but neither did they smile. Jasminka was a statistical oddity.) Sucy's arms were pinned in place, as was her hot chocolate; Jasminka's everything was enormous, dense fat packed along thick, corded muscles--what some would call "bear mode." She was warm as a cat and smelled like flour and chocolate.

Sucy tried to will the blush to recede. It did not. Her gray skin was shading purple in a way that would be alarming for anyone else.

"Are you nice and warm, Sucy?"

"...yeah."

"Was that so hard?"

"...hrrmrrph..."

Jasminka nuzzled Sucy's cheek. "Was it, Sucy?"

"No, Jasminka..."

"You can call me Jazzy, you know! Or Jazz, or Jay Jay, or Mink, or... you know, make something up." She carried Sucy over to the couch and lied down, slowly, so Sucy could adjust her grip on her drink.

Sucy took a time-buying sip of chocolate that turned into a long, slow chug that drained her cup to the dregs. The half-melted marshmallow plopped onto her nose. She took the cup away from her mouth, and to her lack of surprise, Jasminka gently removed the driping confection and popped it in her mouth, gulping it down.

"Well," Sucy said, "[I guess we're trapped here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd02pGJx0s0)"

Jasminka threw a blanket half-draped over the couch onto them. "It seems we are," Jasminka said, resting her cheek on Sucy's. "Can't think of anyone else I'd like to be trapped with."

"...it's... pretty... cozy," Sucy said. Well, there's nowhere else to go and no way out of it, she thought. Let's just enjoy the ride. She relaxed, unaware of just how tense she was, and melted into Jasminka's mighty arms, her firm yet yielding belly.

"Hey," Jasminka said.

"What, Smin?" Sucy said.

"I love you~" She kissed Sucy's cheek.

Sucy turned her head to look her in the eye, however futile that may be; the hair fell from her own concealed eye in the process. "Is that so?" Sucy said. "Well, I have some terrible news for you: I love you too." She kissed her sweet lips. "And now you're cursed."

"What a beautiful curse~" Jasminka said.

The world could be as rainy and gray and crappy as it felt like. As long as Sucy was in Jasminka's hidden kitchen, the scent of baked bread and the warmth of a loving lady would keep the world outside.


	16. ...Whenever I May Find Her

_Requested by Chill LWA's Diana._

* * *

 

At the three-hour mark Amanda realized that this wasn't a dream and she wasn't going to wake up out of it.

Ghost-Blytonbury was locked at midnight, a bloated moon in a starless sky leering through patchy cloud cover. The buildings were old, crooked, dying; she took shelter in what she vaguely remembered was supposed to be a shoe store--what was that actually called, a haberdasher's, or something?--and fled when the slippery night-things finally sniffed her out.

The night-things she didn't know what they were but they were really, really awful. They were sort of like stereotypical devils with skin like wet leather and a faceless stump at the end of their necks in lieu of a head, framed by tumorous, symmetrical horns. Their long, whipping tails were covered in barbs that faintly rustled as they moved, the only sound they made. So Amanda made sure to liven things up.

Three of them had chased her out of the haberwhatever's. Two of them loped after her on all fours on the street, wings tucked close along their back; the third, who had a pair of wings instead of forearms, instead slinked along the sides of buildings.

"Hey, fuck you!" she said and threw a brick on the nearest ground-monster. It took the hit on its horns, which didn't seem to do much, so she ran further into the alley, putting as much cover over her head as she could manage without trapping herself indoors again.

She caught her breath under a rusted fire escape, looking for something to throw or anything. (She'd ran out of mana within the first hour, thinking she could just hurl spells around all day like she usually did in her dreams.) Come on, sharp rock, dropped gun, gassed-up chainsaw--

Steel pipe. Okay.

She hefted it and waited. Let them come to her. This place was narrow and she had a weapon and they didn't. Let them take her if they felt like it. She glimpsed up and saw an abandoned blanket or banner or something left draped on a laundry line billow in the wind. She looked back at the entrance of the alley before remembering that there was no air; it was airless and stagnant.

By then the crawler monster had landed on her, knocking her to the ground. She scrambled for her pipe, but the thing's tail looped around her. One second her face was pressed against the ground; the next the monster was in the air and she had a serious case of whiplash.

And then the flappy bastard tickled her.

Its barbs pressed against her skin, light and airy, and she began to giggle, involuntarily. The tip touched her cheek, gentle and awful; she doubled up in its grasp, choked giggles escaping grit teeth. She bit, she shrugged her head against the tail, and it felt boneless, full of something slippery, and the ground was so far below and there was no way out, no way--

A bolt of light sliced through the monster's tail, and she fell. Not long, though, before she was in a strong pair of arms; their fall never grew too fast, and she and her rescuer landed softly on the edge of a building, if a little too close to the edge.

Diana set her feet on the ground and helped her yank the tail off. It was still moving, though without direction, and the two of them hurled it into the street below, where it kept writhing and snapping at nothing.

"Well," Amanda said, "that was fucked up."

"Yes," Diana said. She aimed her wand up. " _Murowa_."

She fired another blast into the air, striking the beastie in the chest as it swooped in for another attack; Amanda grabbed Diana and cleared them both out of the way of the falling monster. It hit the edge of the building and fell to the street.

"Don't suppose you have any idea what the hell is happening?" Amanda said, forcing a smile.

"Well, the good news is that you're asleep in your bed," Diana said.

"Wait. This actually is a dream?" Amanda said, looking around. "Why not just pinch me?"

"It... well, it is a dream, technically." Diana cleared her throat. "But it so happens that was consecrated wine that you stole, dedicated to Selene, an aspect of Mormo. And so you are being chased by the night gaunts, that they may drag you to the moon to face judgment."

"Dammit," Amanda said, kicking at a loose patch of asphalt on the roof. "I hate getting caught."

"We'll have a talk about this tomorrow," Diana said. "Until then..." She held out her wand, grip-first. "Arm yourself. We'll have a good time."

"What about you?" Amanda said, and noticed the sword on her hip.

Diana drew the rapier and held it up; its silver blade caught the moonlight, dripping from the point to the hilt like glowing milk.

"I'm equipped for a long night," she said, smiling.

"You crazy bitch," Amanda said, admiringly.

"You inspire me," Diana said. "What can I say."

A pack of night gaunts climbed up the sides of the building, aiming their lumpy not-heads at Amanda.

Diana brandished her blade, hand on her hip, feet in position. "Fly for your lives, abyss walkers," she said.

"Or we'll kick your asses," Amanda said, charging up an electric lash spell.

The beasts charged, and the battle began.

* * *

Amanda wiped sweat from her brow at the last of the night gaunts as it lay twitching and dying in its little crater. "Shouldn't have gone to bed tonight, dude." She turned around, or that was the plan, anyway; her feet gave out from under her and she flopped onto her ass. She was exhausted.

Diana rappelled down the side of the convenience store where she had pinned down and slain the flight's _mater suspiriorum_. "Are you alright?" she said, racing to her, rapier held low and away from Amanda.

"Yeah," Amanda said, her voice so hoarse it surprised her. "Just... just tripped a little, that's all."

Diana knelt by her, gently setting her weapon on the ground. "Might I see the wand?'

"Sure," Amanda said, handing it over. The low-charge light was blinking, but it was enough for Diana to chant a restorative spell over her; green light rained from the tines and seeped into Amanda's aching muscles. She sighed in relief.

Diana stood, blade in hand; after a long time of scanning the buildings for signs of movement, she noticed the moon was smaller, paler, and less imposing in the night sky. She returned the Silver Kiss to its sheathe. "Well," she said, "we have precious little mana, but the night is ours."

"We are gonna be able to get out of here, right?" Amanda said, climbing to her feet with Diana's help.

"When we wake up," Diana said, "we will be safe and sound. We'll be sharing a bed, but--"

"You mean 'too,' right?" Amanda said, grinning. It was the first unironic, non-spiteful grin she'd worn since the dream began. "'Cause that's not making me feel less safe and sound."

Diana wore a coy little grin. "We'll be here a minute," she said. "Why not enjoy the night, now that we've won it back?'

Amanda held out her hand. "Sounds great, babe."

Diana took it. "Let's get out of the city. A few too many harsh memories."

"And dead shit," Amanda said, gesturing at the piles of slain night gaunts littering the streets.

"That was implied!" Diana said, suppressing a giggle, not very well.

"Implied, shimplied," Amanda said as they walked away from the city core (which had the gauntflock's _pater tenebraum_ impaled through it). "You know I'm not any good at all that English stuff."

* * *

Dream-Blytonbury was a bloom of civilization in an endless plain of tall grass and swooning bluebonnets. The two women rested on the first hill they found, maybe a mile out from the city. The grass was soft, delicate, like bedding; the bluebonnet petals faintly glowed, as if to replace the stars.

"You ever been to Texas?" Amanda said.

"No," Diana said. "What's it like?"

"It's nice," Amanda said. "It's like the whole world in one state. Lots of people... lots of different people. Lots of different places. You get out of Texas, you're halfway across the world." She sighed. "Sometimes it feels like I got shoved in the universe's closet. The UK is just... pathetic."

"Hm," Diana said. "Is that why you like to act out so often?"

"It's not acting... well, maybe it is," Amanda said. She crossed her legs. "Like, sometimes I think my parents stuck me here 'cause it was a, whachacallit... a tough love thing. Like, 'hey, go here and maybe you won't be so fuckin' gay and you won't pretend to be a guy sometimes!'"

The words hung in the stillness for longer than Amanda realized.

"...man," she said, with a soft huff. "This dream-place just kicks my ass all the time."

Diana sat up. "'Pretending?'"

"I... that's... I mean... that's what they... well, they haven't actually said it," Amanda said. "But I'm pretty sure it's what they think."

"What do you feel like it is?"

"...well..." Amanda looked away. "I don't... well... I..."

"It's alright," Diana said. "I trust you. And we're in a dream."

"...sometimes I don't really feel like being, you know, a girl." Amanda turned onto her side, facing Diana. "Like, I like being a girl. I'm cool, I'm hot. But sometimes it just feels... like I... like... it's not a great fit. Sometimes I... it feels like I should be doing something... like I wanna... fuck, how do you even do this kind of thing? This psychology shit?"

Diana tapped her wand in empty space; a little bottle of wine appeared, which she caught with thumb and forefinger, and two glasses, which she caught by the stems between her pinky and ring fingers. "Just talk. It can help."

"Well!" Amanda said. "I guess... if I had to be on the spot about it, which I guess I am, it feels like sometimes I just wanna be a guy. Like I'm more comfortable dressing up like a guy, doing my hair like that, puttin' on pants... and sometimes I just wanna be me, like, regular-style." She took a glass of wine Diana offered and took a long drink. "It's... it's not like playing pretend. It doesn't feel like it. When I feel it I wanna be like a boy. So, you know, hot damn, I'm a witch, that part's easy. But... it's kinda fucky, isn't it? Like, am I trans, or whatever it is? 'Cause I like being a girl too, but..."

"There is a wealth of terms as to what you may be," Diana said. "I can't say that I am an expert in singling out what you may be, or even narrowing it down. But I can tell you, as a healer, and as your girlfriend, that you are not the only one who feels the way you do, and it is not playing pretend or taking on a guise. It is part of you... [and so it should be cherished](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWrdwP1YH0)." She held out her glass.

"Cheers to that, motherfucker," Amanda quoted, completing the toast. She finished her drink as Diana started to sip hers. "You got more of that wine, right?"

"The whole bottle," Diana said, smiling. "And we have time. As much time as we need tonight."

"Perfect," Amanda said. "Hey... come here." She gestured for Diana to come closer.

Diana set down her wine and moved close to Amanda. In a smooth motion Amanda put her hand behind Diana's hair, working her fingers into her soft, wavy hair, and brought her for a kiss.

She held their lips together for a moment, and as she felt Diana relax, she slipped her tongue into Di's mouth.

After a while, Diana pulled away, taking a breath.

"So," Amanda said, "I gotta cherish everything, right?"

"The stealing," Diana said, "I can't approve of in and of itself... but you do display many admirable skills and qualities in how well you do it."

"Damn right."

"Like your propensity for getting caught.  Very useful.  You won't be sneaking anything past me, Mx. O'Neill."

"Mix?"

"...ah, I'll teach you later," Diana said, leaning into an aggressive kiss of her own.

The night was turning around.


End file.
